670 
Cfe 


.     , 


.*** 

•v<b 

We  want  \vhat  is  best,  not  for  men,  nor  for  parties, 
but  for  the  whole  people !" 


SIFIEJIEOHIIES 


HON.   S.  IKCO 


V 


ne, 


1868. 


DOUGLAS   TAVI.OIfS    DE.MOrRATlC   PRINTING   ESTAP.LISllME'NT, 
fMi  NASSAU  STUKKT  A  <n   >-2<S  PULTON  STUEET, 


Opening  of    the    Campaign. 


SPEECH 


OF 


HOIsT.     S.     S.     COX, 


AT   THE 


ACADEMY    OF    MUSIC,    BROOKLYN, 
JULY    23,    1868. 


HON.  HENRY  C.  MURPHY,  President  of  the 
meeting,  presented  Mr.  Cox.  He  said  :  "I  have 
now,  gentlemen,  the  pleasure  to  present  to  you  a 
gentleman  whom  you  have  heard  before.  His 
voice  has  always  been  eloquent  in  the  cause  of 
Democracy,  and  who  will,  I  have  no  doubt,  to- 
night interest  you  in  the  subjects  which  he  will 
discuss.  I  present  to  you  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox,  for- 
merly of  Ohio."  (Applause.) 

SPEECH  OF  MR.  COX. 

ON  the  9th  day  of  April,  1865,  at  Appomattox, 
General  Lee  surrendered.  Thus  virtually  ended 
the  civil  war.  The  soldiers  of  the  South  were 
paroled  ;  their  political  rights  were  guaranteed  by 
the  honor  of  our  Government,  represented  by  its 
civil  and  military  power.  Secession  expired.  It 
'•ed  on  its  own  chosen  spot — on  the  field  of  force. 
Out  of  the  red  storm  of  the  four  preceding  years 
of  war,  we  expected  a  calm.  But  the  storm  still 
mutters.  Chaos  broods  over  States  whose  area  is 
725,000  square  miles, — larger  than  England, 
France,  Spain,  Portugal  and  Germany — with  a 
population  of  (12,000,000)  twelve  millions,  and 
whose  annual  wealth  from  one  little  pod,  once 
(  .ualed  the  amount  of  the  present  annual  taxes. 

le  bugles  sounded  their  thrice  welcome  truce ; 

?ath — the  skeleton — departed  from  our  borders. 

one — the  shadow — had  taken  the  census  of  the 

ain.     The  sad  days  were  done.      Emotions  of 


gratitude  and  gladness  welled  up  in  our  hearts : 
"Thank  God!  Peace — Peace  had  come  at  last! 
With  it,  a  restored  and  strengthened  Union!" 
(Cheers.)  Three  years  and  more  have  gone  since 
then,  but  is  Peace  here  ?  Is  the  Union  restored 
and  stronger  ?  General  Grant,  in  his  letter  of  ac- 
ceptance the  other  day,  cries  out:  "Let  us  have 
peace!"  He  means  that  we  have  it  not.  He 
wouldn't  ask  for  it  if  we  had  it.  (Laughter.) 
The  Republican  platform  "  congratulates  the  coun- 
try on  the  assured  success  of  the  Reconstruction 
policy  of  Congress."  But  is  peace  here?  Is 
the  Union  assured  ?  Are  the  States  all  in  ?  and  if 
any  are  in,  how  ?  Is  the  flag — our  Union  emblem 
— floating  from  the  Capitols  of  contented  States  ? 
Does  it  not  float  over  arsenals  and  forts,  the  em- 
blem of  repression  and  misrule?  If  so,  let  me 
ask 

WHO   IS    RESPONSIBLE  ? 

I  will  tell  you  who  is  not  to  blame !  At  the  end 
of  the  war,  the  States  South  were  ready  for  recon- 
ciliation. It  was  their  sectional  and  our  national 
need.  The  soldiers  of  the  South  were  content : 
the  people  were  tired  of  war ;  the  ground  was 
sated  with  blood — even  the  old  politicians  sought 
again  the  old  offices,  under  the  old  system.  From 
President  Johnson  and  General  Grant  alike,  came 
the  word,  in  December,  1865,  that  the  "mass 
of  thinking  men  of  the  South  accept  the  present 
situation  of  affairs  in  good  faith."  "  Slavery  and 


2 


secession,"  said  General  Grant,   "are  regarded  as 
settled."     He  insisted  that  "  the  Southern  citizens 
were  anxious  to  return  to  self-government  in  the 
Union  as  soon  as  possible. "     Was  this  mere  white- 
wash, or  fact  ?     Did  General  Grant  tell  the  truth, 
or  did  he  lie  ?   I  think  he  told  the  truth.    (Cheers.) 
Who  has  robbed  us  of   the  fruits   of  victories 
bought  with  such  a  price  ?     Was  there  reconcilia- 
tion needed  from  the  judicial  or  executive  depart- 
ments toward  the  South  ?    No.     Justice  was  sat- 
isfied.    No  scaffolds  were  required.     Even  good 
Mr.  Greeley  went  bail  for  the  rebel  chief.     (Laugh- 
ter.)    The   Executive  gave  amnesty.     Only  the 
hyena  and  other   "beasts"    (Cries  of  "Butler.") 
prowled  among  charred  ruins  and  grass-covered 
graves  ravening  for  prey  and  reprisal.     (Cheers.) 
The   reconciliation    was     cordial     between     the 
people.       The    Executive    was     earnest    in    his 
efforts. .     He   had  no   power,  even  by  his  vetoes, 
to   stop   the  legislation   of  Congress,  if  it  were 
sincere  in   conciliation.       All   that    wus  wanted 
was,  what  Mr.  Lincoln  said  ought  to  have  been 
"compelled"  by  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion :  Representatives  from  the  South  on  the  floor 
of  Congress.      The  alienation   would   thus  have 
been  spanned  with  the  Roman  bridge  of  gold  ;  and 
the  Constitution  would  have  furnished  the  arches 
foritsc  onstruction.  (Cheers.)  The  Executive  had 
a  plan  which  harmonized  with   the  Constitution. 
The  Supreme  Court,  as  we  now  know,  would  have 
approved.     But  Congress,  by  means  of  secret  cau- 
cuses  and  reconstruction  committees,  impeded  all 
the  efforts  of  Governors,  people,  Legislatures,  as- 
sisted by  the  departments   at   Washington,  who 
were  ready  to  bind  anew  their  practical  relations, 
by  means  of  members  elect  to  Congress,  and  with 
their  good  will  and  allegiance  to  the  old  Govern- 
ment.    It  was  Congress  Avhich  refused  their  ad- 
mission. This  was  a  solution  of  the  problem.  Con- 
proposed  a  dilatory,  monstrous,  inconsistent,  pre- 
scriptive ban  against  amnesty,  Union  and  peace. 
Now  that  chaos  has  come  from  it,  the  country  is 
tickled  and  taunted  in  a  Republican  platform,  with 
gratulations  on  the  marvelous  success  of  recon- 
struction ! 

It  is  between  this  plan  of  Congress,  which  set- 
tles nothing  permanently,  and  the  plan  of  the 
Constitution,  which  is  a  settlement  in  form  anc 
fact,  that  furnishes  the  theme  of  political  debate. 
Which  plan  shall  be  the  election  of  the  people  ? 
I  do  not  ask  a  passionate  or  biased  opinion 
between  them.  The  only  question  is :  "  What  is 
best,  not  for  parties,  not  for  soldiers,  not  for  Gen 
cral  Grant  in  gratitude  for  martial  servics  ren 


ered  with  rare  ability— but  what  is  best  for  the 
Country  ?" 

DISCONTENT   SOUTH. 

Before  considering  why  the  dominant  party  has 
ailed  to  reconcile  and  rebuild,  let  me  ask  whether 
the  discontent  at  the   South  now  existing  has  not 
rown  more  bitter  with  each  day's  delay  since  Gen- 
eral Grant's  report  in  1865  ?     Wisdom  would  say, 

Look  at  the  fact  of  discontent  and  obliterate  its 
existence."     The  reasons  for  this  bitter   feeling, 
South,  may  be  fallacious  ;  the  people  may  have  no 
ust  cause  for  it ;  but  so  long  as  .the  discontent 
exists,  it  is  a  menace  to  peace  and  a  source  of  dan- 
ger.    There  are  reasons  paramount  why  the  dis- 
content should  be  appeased.     Is  it  a  valid  reason 
:or  prolonging  trouble  that  it  is  waxing  ?    When 
grievances  grow,  is  there  not  more  reason  for  as- 
suaging them  ?     There  was  some  wit,  but  no  wis- 
iom  in  the  remark   of  Judge   Busteed,  that  he 
would  keep  the  States  South  out  in  the  cold,  till 
their  teeth  chattered  to  the  music  of  the  Union. 
He  would  increase  their  discontent,  and  of  course, 
add   new  burdens   for   their   further   repression. 
Discontent  in   communities     is     the     source    of 
crime,  laziness,   social  discord   and  personal   un- 
safety.     Already  secret  societies,  associations  and 
conspiracies,  curses  of  every  kind,  and  outrages  of 
every  hue,  taking  the  course  of  hostility  between 
the  races,  keeping  capital  from  the  Southern  bor- 
ders, and  industry  paralyzed,    are   unsettling   so 
much  of  the  established  order  as  the  war  even  did 
not  disturb.     These  things  characterize  the  situa- 
tion of  the  South.     WThy  they  exist,  why  military 
tyranny,  the   absence   of  civil  restraint,  and   the 
domination  of  the  untutored  classes  should  pro- 
duce such  results,  is  a  social  problem,  which  his- 
tory and  science  may  solve.     But  our  election  is 
not  as  to  the  philosophy,  but  as  to  the  fact.     The 
skillful  surgeon  does  not  inquire  into  the  legal  or 
moral  elements  of  the  fray  in  which  his  patient 
has  been  maimed.     He  goes  to  the  wound  and  ap- 
plies  the  knife.      With   all   respect   to   General 
Grant,  I  do  not  see  the  remedy  for  our  civil  disor- 
ders in  the  use  of  his  sword,  however  skillful  its 
thrust,  and  brilliant  its  flash.     Its  sheath  would 
be  worth  more.     The  distribution   of  arms  —novr 
in  process  of  being  passed  by  Congress — to  the  • 
South,  indicates  that  our  first  General  has  not  laid 
aside  the  symbols  of  his  profession.      "Let  us 
have — arms,"  say  the  negroes.     "Let  us  have 
peace,"  says   the  General ;  and  he  gives  them — 
arms  !     He  holds  his  own  election  at  the  point  of 
the  sword.     Our  diseases  require  far  other  treat- 


ment.  We  require  constitutional  remedies. 
{Cheers.)  We  want  them  backed  by  the  public 
opinion,  which  Webster  said  was  stronger  than 
bayonets;  which  General  Blair  invokes;  and  which, 
to  guilty  apprehensions,  looks  so  like  revolution. 
These  remedies  will  only  come,  when  that  opinion 
bears  into  the  executive  chair  Horatio  Seymour. 
(Cheers.) 

REPUBLICAN    AMNESTY. 

The  Republican  party,  after  over  three  years  of 
failure  and  delay,  finds  its  power  on  the  wane. 
Great  States,  east  and  west,  fly  from  it  as  from 
leprosy.  Hence,  it  added  a  resolution  to  its  late 
platform,  on  motion  of  General  Schurz,  "com- 
mending magnanimity  and  forbearance  toward 
rebels  who  co-operate  with" — whom?  What? 
With  the  country?  With  the  Constitution?  With 
the  States  all  ?  No—with  "us!"  Their  test  for 
the  removal  of  disqualifications  is  their  own  par- 
tisanship. It  is  not  patriotism.  Of  course,  such 
a  test,  as  the  elections  South  have  determined, 
cuts  off  from  participation  in  the  Government 
the  great  body  of  the  best-informed  whites.  This 
commendation  of  magnanimity  is  a  tricky  flash  of 
rhetoric,  if  not  an  ironic  taunt.  It  was  proven 
to  be  empty  when  it  was  sought  to  incorporate 
Houston,  of  Alabama,  and  Jones,  of  Tennessee, 
in  the  Amnesty  bill.  They  were  Democrats,  and 
hence  no  grace  for  them. 

THE   FINANCES. 

No  plan  for  the  peace  of  the  country  can  be 
permanent  and  successful,  unless  it  gives  con- 
tentment. Contentment,  being  the  source  of  pro- 
duction and  consumption,  will  re-establish  in  the 
South  industry  and  wealth.  Without  these,  the 
South  is  not  a  help,  but  a  weakness  and  a  burden  to 
the  country.  The  North  pays  taxes,  piled  Alp 
on  Alp,  upon  labor  and  property.  The  South  is, 
in  great  part,  responsible  for  these  taxes.  The 
sooner  she  divides  this  burden  with  us  the  better. 
She  is  eager  for  the  chance  ;  until  she  has  protec- 
tion she  cannot  do  this.  The  North  has  paid 
since  July  1865,  by  tariff  and  tax,  some  fifteen 
hundred  millions.  I  doubt  not,  double  that,  has 
been  paid,  which  never  went  into  the  Treasury,  in 
the  enhanced  prices  of  articles  consumed — en- 
hanced by  reason  of  robberies  by  tax  and  tariff, 
to  help  scoundrels  in  and  out  of  office,  and  as 
bounties  to  protected  classes.  At  least,  Mr. 
Wells  says  as  much.  And  yet  our  debt 
increases.  Last  month  it  increased  many  mil- 
lions. It  is  yet  to  increase.  The  debt,  however, 


must  be  met.  It  cannot  be  reduced  so  long  as  the 
army  and  the  Bureau  suck  their  millions  from  the 
Treasury.  Moving  onward  toward  gold  and  sil- 
ver as  ihe  standard  of  all  values,  and  in  the  in- 
terest of  labor  and  commerce,  we  should  do  as 
Horatio  Seymour  proposed  in  his  speech  of  llth 
March  last,  "demand  a  policy  of  peace,  order 
and  economy,  and,  by  gaining  that,  lift  up  the  na- 
tional credit,  help  the  tax-payer,  and  do  justice 
to  the  bondholder,  and  thus  make  our  currency  as 
good  as  sterling  coin."  Thus  I  would  have  one 
currency  for  all,  and  that  currency  that  of  the 
Constitution.  All  these  financial  questions,  there- 
fore, resolve  themselves  into  questions  of  peace, 
order,  and  economy.  But,  as  the  Republican  party 
have  not  given  us,  and  cannot  give  us  either ; 
these  reliefs  from  the  burdens  of  taxation  cannot 
come  from  them. 

REPUBLICAN    PLAN    A   FAILURE. 

Their  plan  for  permanent  peace  fails,  because  it 
is  not  in  harmony  with  the  fundamental  laws  of 
the  republic. 

To  perceive  why  the  Radical  policy  has  failed, 
and  why  it  will  fail  when  completed,  involves  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  and  character  of  our 
Union.  As  by  the  violation  of  these  laws  war 
came,  so,  by  their  observance,  and  by  that  alone, 
will  peace,  come.  As  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
war  was  the  assertion  of  a  right  to  throw  off  the 
paramount  Federal  authority  and  withdraw  States, 
so  the  cause  of  the  present  discontent  is  the  prac- 
tical assertion  of  the  right  of  Congress,  para- 
mount to  the  organic  law,  to  keep  States  out,  to 
regulate  the  conditions  of  their  pretended  admis- 
sion, to  intermeddle  in  their  suffrage,  and  to  carry 
on  what  legislation  they  require,  by  citizens  of 
other  States  not  familiar  with  their  needs. 

RECONSTRUCTION  ACTS. 

Here  Mr.  Cox  discussed  at  length  the  relations 
of  the  States  to  the  Federal  Government,  and  il- 
lustrated the  Radical  revolutionary  policy  by  the 
"Reconstruction  acts."  These  acts  give  all  con- 
trol over  the  Southern  States  to  Congress,  and 
'create  military  power  as  its  instrument. 

The  construction  and  execution  of  these  laws 
are  not  confided  to  the  proper  civil  officers  or 
those  trained  in  the  law.  The  will  of  any  petty 
officer  or  soldier  who  chooses  to  set  up  his  inter- 
pretation is  made,  by  express  enactment,  judicial, 
executive  and  legislative.  Of  course  the  officer 
plays  fantastic  tricks,  which  are  only  relieved 


from  the  ridiculous  by  the  terrible  consequences 
in  which  they  involve  all  that  is  dear  in  life  and 
precious  in  liberty. 

To  compass  this  kind  of  precarious  reconstruc- 
tion, upon  which  the  Republican  platform  con- 
gratulates us,  Congress  subverts  the  original  plan 
of  the  Government.  The  division  of  power, 
State  and  Federal,  is  obliterated.  The  distribu- 
tion of  powers  among  the  Federal  departments  is 
wiped  out.  The  trinity  of  co-equal  departments, 
checking  each  other,  is  transformed  into  a  unity 
of  despotism.  The  Executive  is  hobbled.  The 
veto-power  is  assassinated  by  the  partisan  remo- 
val of  enough  members  to  make  the  minority  less 
than  one-third.  The  pardoning  power  of  the 
President  is  usurped.  His  power  of  appointing 
officers  and  commanding  the  army  is  destroyed. 
He  is  only  saved  from  decapitation  by  one  vote  ! 
He  is  again  threatened  because  of  his  recent 
vetoes !  But  he  will  serve  out  his  term.  His- 
tory will  honor  him,  as  the  great  rock  in  the 
weary  land,  who  gave  us  strength,  wealth,  and 
safety.  God  bless  him ;  as  man  will  honor 
him ! 

The  Supreme  Court  begins  to  consider  the  sta- 
tus of  States.  The  question  is  properly  before 
them.  At  once  the  Court  is  threatened  with  sub- 
version and  cowed  into  submission.  Our  complex 
machinery,  so  nice  in  its  adjustments  and  perfect 
in  its  fitness,  with  the  delicacy  of  a  chronometer 
and  the  energy  of  an  engine,  is  thus  deranged, 
and  the  only  hope  of  restoration  is  in  the 
skill  and  patriotism  of  the  Democratic  organiza- 
tion, which  has  learned  in  the  schools  of  the  old 
master  builders,  who  builded  for  us  better  than 
they  knew,  and  far  better  than  their  descendants 
understand  or  practice ! 

You  might  readily  infer  the  particular  evils  in- 
cident in  these  organic  changes.  Read  the  recon- 
struction acts  as  they  are  interpreted  South  by 
the  Satraps.  Bayonets  regulating  private  debts ; 
the  military  deposing  State  and  municipal  officers ; 
the  elevation  to  office  of  vagabonds  from  other 
States  ;  the  instalation  of  negroes  in  the  place  of 
whites  ;  the  police  under  military  control ; .  the 
epaulettes  giving  the  law,  in  military  commissions, 
and  supplanting  the  judicature  of  the  States  ;  all 
in  subversion  of  expost  facto  provisions  and 
the  rights  of  habeas  corpus  and  fair  trial, 
secured  for  eight  hundred  years  to  our  race, 
and  finally,  as  the  climax,  admitting  States — 
never  out — on  condition  that  they  lose  their  right 
forever  thereafter  to  revoke  negro  suffrage,  and 
that  their  suffrages  shall  be  given  on  the  oath  of 


the  suffragan,  that  he  will  never  dispute  negro 
equality!     (Cheers.) 

SUFFRAGE:    ITS   IMPORTANCE   AND   ABUSE. 

All  this  reconstructive  enginery,  which  is  to  take 
the  place  of  our  system  of  government,  has  one 
purpose :  To  perpetuate  Radical  power  by  negro 
votes. 

It  is  not  necessary  before  an  American  audience 
to  discuss  the  responsibility  of  voting.  No  words 
can  aggrandize  its  momentous  importance.  In  the 
last  analysis,  it  is  sovereignty.  It  is  the  crown 
and  sceptre ;  nay,  the  very  crown  jewel.  It 
should  be  estimated  at  its  true  value.  It  should 
be  kept  untarnished  in  its  lustrous  setting.  On 
its  proper  exercise,  hangs  our  representative  sys- 
tem. It  is  the  only  vehicle  of  Democratic  senti- 
ment. The  elective  authority  has  grown  in  Eng- 
land and  in  this  country  with  the  progress  of  in- 
telligence. It  will  grow  more  with  greater  in- 
telligence. If  its  expressison  is  the  result  of  in- 
timidation by  the  bayonet  or  of  bribery  by  bureaus ; 
if  it  is  inspired  by  malice  or  ignorance,  sovereignty 
is  dethroned  and  democracy  becomes  despotism. 
All  the  intetests  of  society,  now  and  hereafter — 
of  person,  property,  life,  and  liberty — depend  on 
its  fair,  intelligent,  and  honest  exercise.  Moral- 
ists, jurists,  civilians  of  every  rank,  of  every  age 
and  land,  have  given  to  its  consideration  their  pa- 
tient thought.  Shall  it  be  by  ballot  or  open;  wheth- 
er near  the  camp  or  near  the  ration  house ;  whether 
under  the  scowl  of  employer,  or  under  the  coax- 
ing of  demagogues  ?  Lord  Holt  closed  his  opinion 
in  the  famous  leading  case  of  Ashby  and  White, 
which  agitated  both  sides  of  Westminster  Hall 
— thus  :  "  It  is  a  most  trancendant  privilege  to 
choose  persons  as  are  to  bind  a  man's  life  and 
property  by  the  laws  they  make."  Now  it  is  to 
subvert  this  inestimable  privilege  that  Radicalism 
has  wreaked  itself  upon  the  expression  of  hateful 
and  unconstitutional  laws,  and  that  Northern  tax- 
payers sweat  for  the  rations  of  lazy,  incompetent 
persons.  Why,  in  one  county  in  Florida,  Leon, 
— where  2,700  negro  voters  were  registered, — 35,- 
000  rations  were  issued  last  month,  just  before 
the  election  ?  It  is  to  subvert  this  privilege  that 
the  black  belts  of  the  South  are  thronged  with  in- 
terlopers from  the  North,  styled  "carpet-bag- 
gers, " — carrying  inflammatory  appeals  and 
promises  of  forty  acres  and  a  mule  to  cadi 
negro !  It  is  to  subvert  this  privilege  that  the 
army,  at  an  expense  of  one  hundred  millions,  is 
kept  up  in  the  South.  According  to  General 
Grant's  own  talk  to  Senator  Doolittle,  October  2» 


1865,  nearly  all  the  troubles  between  the  whites 
arid  blacks  "  were  in  consequence  of  the  unwise 
attempt  to  force  negro  suffrage  on  those  States  ;" 
and  yet,  it  is  to  introduce  this  system,  that  Gen- 
eral Grant,  while  Secretary  of  War,  three  years 
later,  discovering  that  the  negroes  had  not  "in- 
telligence sufficient  to  combine  for  the  expression 
of  their  will,"  ordered  the  military  to  be  increased 
for  some  time,  to  maintain  the  freedmen  in  their 
right  of  suffrage,  and  recommended,  its  "reduction 
only  after  the  election ! "  Which  is  the  General 
Grant  to  be  approved  ? 

And  after  negro  suffrage  is  given,  what  have 
we?  Liberia,  where  the  blacks,  starting  well, 
sank  to  the  besotted  level  of  the  barbarians  around 
them !  What  we  shall  get,  we  can  tell  from  what 
has  occurred.  The  annals  of  the  black  race,  if 
annals  they  ever  had,  record  that,  unschooled,  the 
equality  of  the  black  is  "but  a  pilloried  equality, 
set  up  for  a  gazing-stock  and  scorn  among  the  na- 
tions of  the  earth."  I  challenge  the  whole  array 
of  negrophilists  to  show  one  example  in  history  of 
free  government  maintained  by  the  black  or  color- 
ed races.  Take  any  place,  choose  any  era — even 
go  into  the  mixed,  or  Mongolian  races,  and  the 
result  is  the  same.  All  the  republics  south  of  us 
show  us  fifty  years  of  anarchy  as  the  result  of  this 
equality.  Hayti  aped  imperialism,  till  even  the 
imperials  laughed  at  the  travestie.  She  exists 
now  only  in  chronic .  spasms.  She  has  just  made 
Salnave  her  emperor.  In  Jamaica  and  the  other 
British  isles  negroes  do  vote ;  but  under  the  tute- 
lage of  the  British  officers,  who  in  vain  strive  to 
repress  the  black  outrages. 

This  is  the  table  to  wThich  Radicalism  invites 
the  American  people  this  fall.  The  table  is  al- 
ready partly  spread  with  dainties.  The  ne^ro  al- 
ready votes  in  the  South.  It  is  proposed  by  the 
newly  coddled  constitutions  to  perpetuate  this 
privilege  by  irrepealable  law.  The  groundwork 
and  corner-stone  of  the  new  constitutions  in  the 
South  is  this  equality.  It  is  more.  It  is  the  su- 
premacy of  the  black.  It  tends  to  the  antagonism 
of  races,  the  destruction  in  the  end  of  the  weaker 
race,  and  in  its  destruction  involving  the  so- 
cial and  material  interests  of  one-third  of  the 
Union. 

THE   CONSTITUTIONS   SOUTH. 

I  propose  for  a  moment  to  sift  these  devices  of 
Radicalism. 

To  give  one  comprehensive  statement ;  Over 
700,000  ignorant  negroes,  mostly  led  by  itine- 
rants, without  name  at  the  North,  and  seeking 


the  gratification  of  their  greed  South, — the  bum- 
mers of  the  Radical  army,  and  the  stipendiaries 
of  Congress  and  Freedman's  Bureaux,  are  all 
at  once  made  voters  !  They  furnish  legislators  for 
the  whole  country.  The  constitution  of  Ala- 
bama is  a  negro  constitution  to  the  extent  of  57,- 
287  negro  majority.  In  Georgia,  Florida,  the 
Carolinas,  Texas  and  Virginia,  where  the  whites 
had  some  20,000  more  registered  voters  than  the 
blacks,  nevertheless,  owing  to  the  chronic  discon- 
tent, the  vote  showed  a  negro  majority  of  251,- 
496 !  These  constitutions  were  made  to  order  in 
Washington.  They  are  all  cut  from  one  pattern. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  interest  to  the  South  alone  ; 
but  to  the  North  also.  Twenty  Senators,  over 
fifty  Representatives,  and  seventy  electoral 
votes  for  President,  will  wield  in  the  Federal 
counsels  the  power  of  ten  States.  They  hold  the 
balance  of  powrer.  In  the  Senate,  Florida  nulli- 
fies New  York.  If  the  elections  are  at  all  equi- 
poised, as  in  1856—60, — these  black  votes  will 
rule !  We  are  then  a  black  republic !  It  is  a 
terrible  peril.  These  700,000  black  voters  can 
destroy  our  best  policies.  They  may  vote  down 
our  credit ;  tax  at  pleasure  ;  vote  to  themselves 
our  public  lands,  and  repudiate  at  will.  If  your 
children  go  South  to  live, — they  have  to  go  un- 
der irrevocable  laws,  enacting  that  such  suffrage 
shall  forever  be  continued.  The  voter  South 
must  swear  that  he  accepts  the  civil  and  political 
equality  of  all  men.  Where  are  the  voters  in 
New  York,  Ohio,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Michi- 
gan, Indiana  and  Illinois,  who  have  refused  thus 
to  vote  ?  Disfranchised  ! .  Nearly  two  millions 
of  Democratic  voters  in  the  North  are  thus  aliens 
from  the  South.  Thus  the  union  of  equal  States 
becomes  a  sham  and  a  shame  !  (Cheers.) 

That  I  do  not  overstate  the  facts,  read  the  con- 
stitutions of  Alabama,  Arkansas,  Mississippi, 
Virginia  and  Louisiana.  You  will  find  that 
every  voter  must  swear  that  he  recognizes  and  ac- 
cepts the  civil  and  political  equality  of  black  and 
white.  Even  though  the  voter  may  believe  Om- 
nipotence has  made  distinctions  which  should  be 
observed  between  the  races,  he  is  ostracised  as  a 
voter  till  he  pierces  the  veil  of  Onmiscience,  and 
by  some  transcendental  intuition  from  his  own 
superior  divinity,  swears  that  the  gross,  lazy,  un- 
progressive,  and  ignorant  worshipper  of  a  devil 
Fetish  on  an  Alabama  plantation  is  his  equal, 
civil  and  political !  I  should  not  wonder  if  con- 
siderable swearing  were  the  result  of  such  a  poli- 
cy. Already  States  are  admitted  with  this  irre- 
vocable condition.  True,  they  were  never  out. 


True,  Congress  has  affirmed  in  its  preamble  ad- 
mitting Arkansas,  that  she  has  by  the  Legislature 
of  the  State — before  admission — accepted  the  14th 
amendment.  True,  there  was  no  Legislature  un- 
til, according  to  the  reconstruction  law,  the  State 
constitution  was  approved  by  Congress.  Still 
she  is  admitted.  True,  the  President  has  found 
no  warrant  for  her  admission,  as  she  was  never 
legally  out ;  and  according  to  the  law  of  Con- 
gress admitting  her,  never  legally  ready  to  come 
in.  But  she  is  in !  •  Well,  her  Senators  will 
soon  be  voting  on  our  interests  ;  and  the  work  of 
preparing  for  voting  the  Radical  ticket  by  negro 
and  military  forces  will  be  begun. 

Next  comes  the  Omnibus  bill  for  six  others- 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Louisiana,  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  and  Florida.  Virginia,  Mississip- 
pi, and  Texas  may  follow,  though  I  see  to-day 
that  it  is  proposed  to  put  them  to  the  sword  yet 
awhile.  The  play  is  then  to  end  in  some  giddy 
Black  Crook  spectacle !  These  constitutions  are 
the  product  of  negro  incubation,  aided  and  ad- 
dled by  the  warmth  of  Northern  vagrants  who, 
cuckoo-like,  have  set  upon  eggs  not  their  own. 
(Laughter.)  Here  and  there  are  delegates  from 
Canada  and  Jamaica,  unnaturalized  !  Think  of  it, 
gentlemen  from  the  Liffey  and  the  Rhine.  Mixed 
in  this  mosaic  are  unpardoned  culprits  from 
South  and  North.  Here  a  black  scoundrel  from 
Sing  Sing ;  there  a  horse-thief  from  the  peniten- 
tiary of  Ohio !  Here  a  razor-bearing  barber,  in- 
nocent of  all  but  lather ;  and  there  a  razor-cut- 
ting assassin,  guilty  of  all  the  crimes  in  the  cal- 
endar. These  prepare  sovereign,  States  for  the 
family  of  Washington  !  They  are  manufactur- 
ing Radical  representation.  Listen  to  their  sense- 
less jargon  and  audacious  malignity.  Is  it  some 
mummery  of  dim  traditions,  caugnt  from  their 
African  forests  ?  No ;  these  are  the  peers  of 
Randolph,  Pinckney,  Madison,  Roger  Sherman, 
and  Hamilton.  They  are  making  organic  laws 
for  millions  of  intelligent  people !  Take  a  photo- 
graph— a  colored  photograph — of  k  Southern  con- 
vention. A  few  whites  sit  there  in  simple  cour- 
age and  sadness.  They  can  do  no  good.  Con- 
spicious  only  for  their  modesty  and  intelligence, 
they  sit  aloof  from  this  extravanganza.  A  Hun- 
nicutt  comes  forth  as  ring-master.  Parti-colored 
clowns  appear.  The  reconstruction  tan-bark  is 
raked  over,  and  here  we  are,  Mr.  Merry  man  !  The 
black  horse,  Equality,  is  trotted  out,  and  then 
begins  the  eternal  round  of  loyal  talk.  But  do 
these  caricatures  of  men  make  constitutions  ? 
No;  no.  Ohio  has  the  rod  over  Louisiana! 


Kansas  has  her  lash  on  the  back  of  Arkansas  I  , 
Wisconsin  cares  for  Florida  !  New  York  and  New 
England  have  their  busy-bodies  all  through !  and 
behold !  these  constitutions  arise  not  like  the 
vails  of  the  ancient  city,  to  Orphean  music,  but 
to  the  banjo  of  negro  minstrelsy  !  (Cheers  and 
laughter.) 

IKEEVOCABLE  LAW. 

Who  but  statesmen  like  these  could  ever  have 
read  Jeremy  Bentham's  essay  against  irrevocable 
laws,  so  as  the  more  closely  to  violate  its  wisdom. 
These  conventions  of  Progressives  ordain  that 
black  suffrage  shall  never  be  .  Never — never  ! 
NEVER  !  They  are  indeed  ministers  of  the  un- 
changeable! They,  priests  of  the  only  Perfect! 
Time,  which  reforms  for  others— what  can  time  do 
for  them?  Shall  not  wisdom  die  with  them? 
And  Congress  admits  the  irrevocable  law,  as  if  it 
could  shiver  with  a  straw  from  the  fanatic  giver, 
the  lance  of  Democracy  in  its  grand  and  growing 
future.  (Cheers.) 

This  irrevocable  law  is  as  useless  as  it  is  sense- 
less. It  is  revolutionary,  as  Dr.  Arnold  says, 
because  there  is  nothing  so  unnatural  and  convul- 
sive as  the  strain  to  keep  things  fixed,  when  all 
the  world  by  the  law  of  its  creation,  is  in  eternal 
progress.  How  much  more^revolutionary  to  try 
to  keep  a  bad,  base  thing  when  the  world  rolls  on 
for  eternal  good  ?  The  attempt  is  almost  ridicu- 
lous. It  is  only  equalled  by  the  fuddled  fellow 
who  was  seen  clambering  up  an  overshot  wheel  in 
a  fulling  mill.  "What  are  you  about?"  said 
one.  "Going  to  bed,  but  the  darned  thing 
won't  hold  still. "  This  will  be  the  repose  of  the 
Rapical  irrevocable  law.  (Laughter.) 

It  might  be  of  interest  to  white  persons  in  the 
North,  where  we  have  repudiated  negro  suffrage, 
to  look  at  the  results  of  these  conventions.  Go 
to  South  Carolina.  There  the  negro  is  dominant. 
The  whites  are  disfranchised  arid  the  negroes  are 
not.  There,  negroes  who  own  not  an  acre,  and  who 
cannot  command  a  dollar,  propose  to  tax  property 
and  people.  It  is  a  tax  levied  by  indolence  and 
poverty,  on  industry  and  property.  The  negro 
who  has  nothing,  proposes  to  tax  the  white  man 
who  has  all.  Very  well.  Let  arrogant  ignorance 
rule !  Will  it  placate  ?  They  make  the  schools 
open  to  all — compel  the  white  to  send  his  child 
against  all  his  taste's  and  nature,  and  to  mingle  in 
their  black  and  tan  school,  and  tax  him  for  its 
existence..  Will  this  last?  They  propose  to 
raise  two  millions  out  of  an  impoverished  State, 
which  in  its  best  days  could  not  raise  more  than 


$400,000.  Of  course  under  such  burdens,  labor 
is  dislocated  and  government  becomes  a  .crucifix- 
ion. Will  it  last  ?  (Cries  of  "No".) 

Go  to  Misssisippi !  What  a  Convention !  It  is 
well  called  a  chain  gang.  It  numbers  one  hun- 
dred. Out  of  that  number  there  are  seventy-five 
whites,  among  them  five  Mississippians.  There 
are  ten  outside  negroes.  They  proceed  to 
work  and  their  work  will—stand  ?  will  it  ?  (Cries 
of  "Never."') 

The  truth  is,  some  of  these  constitutions  are 
the  result  of  violations  of  these  very  odious  recon- 
struction laws  in  many  particulars.  In  some  of  the 
States  the  voters  were  less  than  a  majority  of  the 
registry.  A  breach  of  faith — a  Congressional  lie! 
—but  what  matter?  Has  not  Congress  power 
paramount  to  all  States  ?  Is  not  Congress  alrea- 
dy reproached  with  having  kept  the  Union  dis- 
solved? Must  not  something  be  done?  Must 
not  these  black  States  be  counted  in  the  El- 
ectoral College  for  Radicalism  ?  Is  not  this  re- 
storation indispensable  to  this  count?  And  is 
there  not  already  arranged  a  fresh  registry  for 
the  Electoral  College?  And  to  do  this  where 
is  the  limit  of  effrontery  or  the  bound  of 
usurpation  which  this  Congress  will  not  over- 
step? 

NEGRO   SUFFRAGE  NORTH  AND   SOUTH. 

That  this  expression  is  not  too  severe,  read  the 
second  resolve  of  the  Republican  platform — 
"Equal  suffrage  to  the  loyal  men  of  the  South ; 
but  in  the  North,  leave  it  to  the  States ! "  Ah ! 
They  have  left  it  to  the  North,  and  the  peo- 
ple have  responded,  thundering  for  white  men 
and  white  civilization  ;  but  at  the  South,  it  is 
only  loyal  to  be  black  in  face  or  heart ;  therefore, 
let  the  the  bayonet  and  Bureau  fix  suffrage ! 

Yes,  in  the  North,  where  their  power  is  totter- 
ing, the  Radicals  recognize  States,  and  leave  suf- 
frage to  them.  They  condescend  to  recognize 
New  York  and  Ohio  as  sovereign  over  suffrage  ; 
but  in  the  South,  even  after  they  become  States, 
black  suffrage  is  to  be  a  fundamental  and  un- 
changeable condition,  an  irrevocable  law.  For- 
getting their  old  claim  that  suffrage  was  a  natural 
right  to  all  manhood  everywhere,  they  now  pre- 
tend it  is  a  matter  of  locality  and  not  of  principle. 
It  is  a  natural  right  in  Louisiana  but  it  is  a  crea- 
ture of  statute  in  Connecticut./  It  is  a  natural 
right  in  the  Southern  portion  of  the  family ;  but, 
as  the  old  lady  said  of  the  measles,  "  there 
wasn't  enough  of  it  to  go  round  through  all  the 
children."  (Laughter.)  The  Northern  white  may 


deny  votes  to  the  negro,  the  Southern  white 
may  not.  This  <is  equality!  One  law  here, 
another  there.  Equality !  A  little  retail  negro 
suffrage  here,  where  it  can  do  little  harm,  is 
denied ;  wholesale  negro  suffrage  there  is  en- 
forced where  it  is  supreme!  What  means 
this  discrimination  ?  If  Congress  can  overturn, 
white  suffrage  South,  can  it  not  overturn  black 
suffrage  South  hereafter  ?  Or  can  it  not  establish 
black  suffrage  North,  and  withold  it  from  the 
whites  ?  If  the  States  South  have  not  the  sove- 
reign power  in  this  regard,  have  the  States  North? 
If  so,  what  then  ?  What  will  be  the  vetoes  of 
General  Grant  on  these  new  issues  ?  So  that  at 
last,  after  all  their  schemes  for  equality  and  suf- 
frage, this  Radical  party  is  driven  to  the  necessity 
of  making  compacts  with  States  not  cognizable  by 
the  Constitution,  of  holding  out  the  open  hand  to 
the  negroes  South  while  shaking  its  clenched  fist 
at  the  more  intelligent  negroes  North. 

This  is,  at  least,  after  so  many  weary  years  of 
national  unrest,  the  anodyne  for  our  feverish 
body  politic.  This  is  the  balm  for  the  wounds  of 
war  !  This  is  the  statesmanship  of  a  party  who 
seek  to  strengthen  the  nation  by  emasculating  its 
voting  strength,  and  killing  its  material  and  indus- 
trial interests. 

PRACTICAL   RESULTS. 

Can  you  wonder  that,  as  a  consequence,  indus- 
try fails  to  be  stimulated ;  that  crops  are  not 
planted,  because  there  is  no  surety  of  their  har- 
vest ?  Can  you  wonder  that  the  little  white  pod 
which  once  gave  a  billion  of  spindles  to  the  land, 
and  the  trident  of  commerce  to  the  sea,  sickens 
and  dies,  furnishing  only  one-half  of  its  old  pro- 
duce as  the  media  of  exchange  ?  Can  you  wonder 
that  we  export  fifty  millions  in  gold  to  supply  the 
nation  with  sugar,  all  of  which  might  have  been 
raised  at  home  ?  Can  you  wonder  that  the  alliga- 
tor has  usurped  the  sugar  lands,  as  Congress  has 
slimed  over  the  sweet  and  blessed  amenities  of  po- 
litical concord  ?  Can  you  wonder  that  the  North 
is  weaker  for  its  connection  with  the  South — pay- 
ing its  taxes  and  being  drained  for  its  terrible  ex- 
cesses ?  Can  you  wonder  that  discontent  contin- 
ues— increases,  and  threatens  to  destroy  ?  Can 
you  wonder  that  disaffection  is  becoming  as 
chronic  with  us  as  in  Ireland  toward  England. 
(Cheers.) 

ENGLISH    CARPET-BAGGERS. 

Radicals!  go  you  to  Ireland,  that  "Poland  of 
the  seas!"  Green  in  her  soil,  and,  alas!  ever 


8 


green  in  her  bleeding  wounds.  Go  to  her,  seven 
hundred  years  agone !  Go  to  her,  when  Eng- 
land boasted  of  her  Charter  wrung  from  King 
John  by  her  potential  barons !  Read  our  fu- 
ture miseries  in  her  past  history,  and  her  dis- 
content in  Radical  philosophy.  After  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  of  perpetual  harassment, 
the  Irish  chiefs,  at  last  tired  of  lust,  of  plunder 
and  power,  appealed  to  Pope  John  XXII.  :  "  We 
had,"  they  said,  "  a  written  code  of  laws,  accord- 
ing to  which  our  nation  was  governed  hitherto  i 
they  have  deprived  us  of  those  laws  and  have 
established  other,  iniquitous  laws,  by  which  in- 
justice and  inhumanity  are  combined  for  our  de- 
struction." They  announced  their  determination 
to  shake  off  the  detestable  yoke  and  clear  out 
the  English  carpet-baggers.  Ever  since,  till  the 
last  Irishman  was  hung  on  an  English  gibbet  ut- 
tering his  prayers  for  old  Ireland  and  his  curses 
for  England,  has  this  condition  of  foreign  and 
tyrannous  misrule  continued.  Pestilence  and 
poverty,  poverty  and  pestilence,  trouble  and  tyr- 
anny, tyranny  and  trouble,  confiscation  and  cru- 
elty, cruelty  and  confiscation,  Cromwells  and 
Straffords,  Puritans  and  Roundheads — all  mark 
the  era  of  this  rule  of  the  English  carpet-baggers ! 
The  parallel  is  painfully  accurate.  Spoliation, 
oppression,  confiscation,  statesmen  unlearned  and 
unlearning,  pagans  in  religion  and  devils  in  poli- 
tics, are,  in  this  land,  following  the  English  les- 
son, to  the  misery  and  destruction  of  one-third  of 
this  people !  Their  very  tactics  are  the  same.  In 
seven  years  our  Radicalism  has  learned  all  the 
practices  of  seven  hundred  years  of  English  tyr- 
anny (cheers). 

DEMOCRACY  THE   REMEDY. 

Where  is  the  relief?  I  answer,  a"s  President 
Johnson  said,  when  he  came  to  Washington, 
"The  only  salvation  is  in  the  Democratic  party!" 
Its  history  is  coeval  with  the  Constitution,  and 
will  be  co-eternal  with  the  Government.  In  all 
that  gives  stability  to  industry,  freedom  to  trade, 
standards  to  currency,  equality  in  taxation,  econ- 
omy in  administration,  self-government  to  States, 
peace  to  the  Union,  at  home,  peace,  abroad,  peace 
and  glory,  in  all  that  makes  up  a  law-abiding  and 
Constitution-revering  party,  the  Democracy  will 
stand  in  the  next  seventy  years,  as  it  did  in  the 
seventy  years  before  the  war — a  wall  of  ada- 
mant against  the  waves  of  Radicalism  (Cheers). 
It  is  this  party  that  has  made  our  land  great  and 
our  Government  strong,  not  by  the  collisions  of 
civil  war,  but  by  the  cultivation  of  concord.  Un- 


der the  control  of  Democracy,  we  should,  before 
now,  have  had  this  whole  continent  banded 
under  a  federal  head,  holding  half  our  hemi- 
sphere, as  gravity  holds  the  stars,  by  the  sys- 
tem of  constitutional  law  (cheers). 

Before  the  war  the  Democracy  strove  to  save 
the  nation  with  earnest,  patriotic  and  peaceful 
endeavors.  During  the  war  it  commanded  its 
sons  to  the  field  with  melancholy  pride  ;  and  it 
gave  its  sweetest  blood  to  the  Cause,  as  it  had 
given  its  kindest  counsels.  Horatio  Seymour,  by 
his  speeches  and  his  administration  in  New  York, 
is  a  fair  type  and  noble  illustration  of  Demo- 
cratic patriotism.  His  record  is  crj^stalline.  In 
vain  slander  assails  it.  He,  like  the  party 
whose  exponent  he  is,  accepted  the  results  of  the 
war  as  they  were  declared,  as  in  honor  bound, 
and  in  the  spirit  of  Christian  amnesty,  ' '  with 
malice  to  none,  charity  to  all,  to  bind  up  the  na- 
tion's wounds,  and  to  do  all  that  may  achieve 
and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  our- 
selves and  with  all  nations."  In  this  spirit  the 
Democracy  intend  to  contend.  If  they  fail,  then 
the  stars  in  their  courses  are  against  them.  If 
they  succeed,  the  spirit  of  Christ  will  temper  the 
people,  and  all  that  is  forgiving  and  good  will  en- 
compass the  Constitution  as  sentinels  for  its 
guard  and  its  sweet  honor  !  Then,  over  and  out 
of  the  cataract,  seething  and  foaming  with  the 
passions  engendered  by  our  civil  strife,  there  will 
spring,  like  Hope, 

«•  A  radiant  arch,  that,  with  prismatic  dyes, 
Links  North  to  South,  its  keystone  in  the  skies." 


Speech    in   Poughkeepsie    on    the 
18th  of  August,  1868. 

Mr.  Cox  spoke  at  this  place  as  follows  : 

Men  of  Duchess  county,  I  am  very  happy  this 
evening  to  address  an  audience  in  the  home  of  my 
old  friend,  Judge  Nelson,  with  whom  I  have 
served  in  Congress. 

A  voice — "Louder." 

Mr.  Cox— I  will  work  it  up  pretty  soon  my 
friend.  If  you  pour  water  down  a  pump  you  must 
wait  a  little  while  before  it  will  come  up  at  the 
spout.  (Laughter.)  I  was  about  to  tender 
to  you  my  acknowledgments  for  the  recep- 
tion which  you  have  given  me.  Perhaps  the  best 
way  to  acknowledge  the  reception  is  to  commence 
at  once  the  discussion  in  the  matters  which  you 
have  come  out  to  hear.  I  do  not  propose  to  in- 


9 


dulge  in  any  vituperation  of  our  opponents,  but 
would  rather  lead  you  to  reason  among  your- 
selves as  I  speak  to  you.  Let  us  see  if  we  can- 
not come  together,  llepublicans  and  Democrats, 
with  a  view,  if  possible,  to  better  the  condition  of 
the  country,  for  I  think  everybody  will  confess 
that  it  is  not  well  with  us  at  present.  (Ap- 
plause.) Some  three  years  ago  my  Republican 
friends  (for  I  will  address  you  first),  secession 
was  beaten  upon  its  own  chosen  battle-field,  as  I 
hoped  it  would  be  in  the  speech  which  I  made  in 
Congress— the  second  that  was  made  in  that 
body — against  secession.  I  followed  that  gal- 
lant soldier,  John  A.  McClernand,  of  Illinois — 
(applause),  who  was  dismissed  the  other  night  by 
General  Logan  here  with  hardly  a  complimentary 
notice.  We  held  that  secession  should  be  throt- 
tled. But  we  are  told  by  some  of  the  Republican 
speakers  that  the  war  is  not  ended.  Our  friend 
Grant  says,  "Let  us  have  peace,"  which  shows 
that  he  thinks  we  have  not  got  peace  just  now,  or 
lie  would  not  ask  for  it.  (Laughter  and  applause.) 
Over  one-third  of  our  country  to-day,  there  broods 
chaos  and  anarchy.  Why,  we  thought  we  had 
peace  when  our  soldiers  came  home.  We  should 
have  had  peace  in  fact,  as  well  as  in  name.  Death, 
the  skeleton,  had  retired  from  our  borders. 
Time,  with  its  shadows,  had  left  us  mourners  by 
a  million  of  graves.  Why  have  AVC  not  peace  to- 
day. General  Grant,  in  December,  1865,  told  us 
and  told  Congress  that  he  had  visited  the  South, 
and  that  secession  and  slavery  were  both  dead , 
that  the  thinking  men  of  the  South  were  anxious 
to  return  to  their  allegiance.  Did  General  Grant 
tell  the  truth  then,  or  did  he  lie  ?  Grant  told  the 
truth ;  and  when  General  Logan  said  the  other 
night  that  Grant  made  no  mistakes,  I  will  take 
him  at  his  word,  and  believe  that  Grant  told  the 
truth  when  he  said  the  men  of  the  South  were 
ready  to  accept  peace  and  reconciliation.  Why 
have  we  not  reconciliation  to-day?  Why  has  our 
noble  old  flag  become  the  emblem  of  repression 
and  misrule,  instead  of  liberty,  in  ten  States? 
Who,  my  Republican  brother,  is  to  blame  for  it  ? 
Jeff.  Davis  has  been  a  prisoner,  and  what  has 
been  done  siruce  Lee's  surrender  with  him,  except 
to  put  him  on  trial  and  have  him  bailed  out  by 
Horace  Greeley?  (Laughter.)  I  will  tell  you 
first  who  is  not  to  blame — the  Northern  States, 
as  States,  were  not  to  blame  ;  for  States — accord- 
ing to  the  received  theory  of  Republicans,  during 
the  war  and  after  the  war,  when  they  sent  the 
constitutional  amendment  abolishing  slavery  to 
these  States  for  adoption,  the  States  were  not  de- 


stroyed; they  were  indestructible.  The  States 
were  ready  for  union.  The  soldiers  were  ready 
in  kindness,  in  magnanimity,  and  forbearance. 
The  people  were  ready  with  conciliation.  The 
judicial  department  claimed  no  reprisals.  No 
scaffolds  were  erected.  Even  Gerrit  Smith  and 
Greeley  never  asked  that  scaffolds  should  be 
erected.  Nobody  but  the  hyenas  and  other  beasts, 
prowled  about  the  grass-grown  graves  and  charred 
ruins  of  the  South,  for  reprisals  and  prey.  (Ap- 
plause.) The  Executive  Department  was  ready 
for  union.  Now  I  will  tell  you  where  the  delay 
came  from.  Having  done  all  that  was  required 
of  them  as  near  as  they  could,  the  South  was 
ready  for  the  Union — for  civil,  spiritual,  and 
political  fellowihip— but  at  that  time  a  scheme 
was  broached  in  Congress,  with  the  aid  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Radical  party,  to  get  up  a  Recon- 
struction Committee  to  counteract  by  their  secret 
caucuses  the  kindness  and.  conciliation  that  were 
just  being  crystallized.  The  President  had  his 
plan,  which  was  the  plan  of  the  Constitution- 
The  old  Romans  used  to  say  that  for  a  retreating 
foe,  they  would  build  a  bridge  of  gold,  which  was 
a  wise  old  maxim.  The  question  was,  which  was 
the  best  plan — the  plan  of  the  Constitution  or  not  ? 
The  supremacy  of  the  Constitution,  or  the  supre- 
macy of  Congress  ?  Now,  in  England  Parlia- 
ment is  paramount  to  the  Constitution,  but  in  this 
country,  Congress  is  elected  under  the  organic  law, 
an^d  the  great  refinement  of  our  civil  polity  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  our  Federal  Government  is  re- 
strained (or  ought  to  be)  in  its  exercise  of  power. 
The  question  is  not  what  is  best  for  soldiers  or 
parties,  or  for  the  black,  or  white,  or  even  Gener- 
al Grant,  whose  military  worth  I  don't  propose  to 
contest  for  he  has  had  partial  success.  I  would 
not  pluck  one  leaf  of  laurel  from  his  martial 
brow.  But  the  great  question  for  our  people  to 
consider  is  what  is  best  for  our  country.  (Ap- 
plause.) Now  the  Republican  Convention  at 
Chicago  saw  that  there  was  trouble  coming.  I 
know  that  they  make  light  of  Governor  Sey- 
mour's nomination,  but  they  will  perhaps,  after 
November,  be  in  the  same  condition  as  the 
little  boy  that  stubbed  his  toe — they  will  feel 
better  when  it  don't  hurt.  (Laughter.)  •  Ohio 
voted  60,000  against  striking  out  the  word' ;  white" 
from  the  Constitution.  Pennsylvania  voted  against 
the  Radicals,  and  other  States  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific  were  flying  from  the  Radical  party, 
and  they  thought  they  would  put  something  in 
their  platform  about  conciliation  and  humanity. 
And  what  do  you  think  it  was  ?  Why,  being  in- 


10 


terpreted,  it  meant  that  the  South  must  knock  at 
the  door  of  the  Union  with  black  knuckles. 
(Laughter  and  applause.)  Three  or  four  States 
did  not  so  knock,  so  those  States  are  still  held 
in  subjection  by  the  sword.  It  is  to  the  interest 
of  the  whole  country  that  we  should  not  continue 
in  our  present  position  :  don't  you  think  so  ?  Dis- 
content brings  laziness,  unthrif  t,  and  crime,  per- 
sonal un  safety  and  social  disorder.  It  is  a  con- 
stant menace  to  our  peace,  and  a  source  of  danger 
to  the  country.  It  may  be  said  that  the  men  of 
the  South  have  no  reason  to  be  discontented.  But 
it  exists,  and,  as  a  good  surgeon  attends  to  'his 
patient  before  he  wastes  time  in  finding  out  how 
he  got  hurt,  so  we  should  first  cure-  the  national 
ills.  My  judgment  is  that  to  cure  this  country 
we  must  go  into  the  old  Democratic  materia  med- 
ica.  (Laughter  and  applause.)  We  want  consti- 
tutional remedies.  You  can't  do  it  by  the  sword. 
If  Grant  is  not  a  civilian  he  can't  deal  with  civil 
matters  rightly.  You  don't  go  to  a  blacksmith  to 
get  your  watch  mended,  nor  to  a  silversmith  to  get 
your  horse  shod.  (Roars  of  laughter.)  And  you 
don't  go  to  a  soldier  when  you  want  earnest,  care- 
ful statesmanship,  which  this  country  needs. 
(Applause.)  If  you  want  the  country  cured,  go 
to  Horatio  Seymour,  of  Oneida  county.  (Ap- 
plause.) Lift  the  burdens  of  taxation,  and  you 
will  gain  contentment.  Insure  protecttion  to  the 
laborer — for  the  stimulus  of  industry  is  Govern- 
mental protection.  Remember  the  maxim  of 
Montesquieu,  "  While  you  put  down  the  rebel- 
lion, you  should  save  the  rebels. "  The  tegis  of 
the  Government  should  cover  all  men.  How,  then, 
are  you  to  get  rid  of  these  troubles  ?  It  is  time  that 
you  permitted  the  South  to  share  the  burden  of 
taxation  with  you.  You  can't  tell  what  you  don't 
pay  taxes  on.  How  can  you  lessen  the  taxes  un- 
less you  withdraw  these  suckers  that  are  hanging 
on  at  the  Treasury,  these  vampyres  that  feed  upon 
your  liberty  and  your  industry?  "But,"  says 
the  Republican  friend,  "  the  poor  man  don't  pay 
taxes  ;  only  the  rich  pay  taxes. "  Let  us  look  at 
that  a  moment.  When  you  hire  a  house  of  a  man 
don't  you  suppose  he  puts  his  income  tax  in  your 
rent? 

A  voice — "  I  bet  you." 

I  know  how  Congress  taxes  your  wages :  by  tax 
ing  everything  that  you  buy  with  your  wages — 
(applause) — I  have  seen  it  done,  over  and  over. 
When  they  say  they  don't  tax  you  they  don't  tell 
the — economical  arrangement.  (Laughter.)  Gen- 
eral Logan  said  the  Democratic  party  would  have 
to  levy  taxes.  Very  true  ;  but  they  will  levy  less 


of  them.  (Applause.)  If  Mr.  Seymour  is  elect- 
ed, we  will  get  rid  of  the  necessity  of  an  army  in 
the  South,  and  that  will  save  one  expense.  (Ap- 
plause.) We  will  then  get  rid  of  at  least  $100,- 
000,000  taxes.  (Applause.)  We  will  make  the 
Republican  party  responsible  for  the  $1,200,000,- 
000  they  have  collected  since  July,  1865,  over  and 
pbove  what  went  to  pay  the  public  debt,  and  both 
direct  and  indirect  taxes,  and  ask  them  what  be- 
came of  the  money.  (Approbation.)  General 
Logan  says  it  has  gone  to  liquidate  the  principal 
and  pay  the  interest  of  the  public  debt.  But,  my 
friends,  the  public  debt  is  increasing  to-day,  has 
been  for  months.  (Cheers.)  Where  did  the 
money  go  ? 

A  Voice — "  Into  carpet-bags."  (Roars  of  laugh- 
ter.) 

Mr.  Cox — Well,  they  have  a  Freedmen's  Bureau, 
down  there.  I  had  the  honor,  when  in  Congress,  to 
make  a  speech  against  this  freedmen's  business.  I 
did  not  think  it  the  business  of  the  Government 
to  feed  anybody — black  or  white — unless  organized 
for  war.  But  General  Logan  tells  you  that  this 
vast  elemosynary  institution  only  cost  $7,000,000, 
and  collected  $60,000,000.  How  does  he  figure  it 
out  ?  Why,  he  says  the  Government  collected  that 
amount  of  tax  on  cotton.  He  counts  in  all  the 
cotton  left  at  the  end  of  the  war,  what  was  taxed 
the  time  the  law  went  into  effect,  and  all  the  cot- 
ton raised  since  the  war — (laughter) — and  he  puts 
it  all  down  to  the  credit  of  the  Freedmen's  Bu- 
reau. (Renewed  merriment.)  This  people  that 
was  so  unthrifty  as  not  to  be  able  to  take  care  of 
itself  is  credited  with  contributing  enough  to  sup- 
port the  United  States  Government.  (Laughter.) 
The  Freedmen's  Bureau  is  a  sort  of  miserable 
arrangement  to  feed  men  wiio  have  gone  down 
there  from  the  North,  and  who  can't  get  an  hon- 
est living  there.  (Laughter  and  applause.)  They 
are  like  the  two  black  crows  who  sat  on  a  hill. 
(Laughing.)  Now  I  wish  to  use  General  Logan 
with  great  respect,  as  I  served  with  him  in  the 
Democratic  party  a  good  many  years.  (Laughter.) 
I  know  very  well  at  the  beginning  of  the  war 
General  Logan  was  not  quite  as  strong  for  the 
North  as  he  is  now,  or  as  I  was  then.  This  I  tell 
you  confidentially.  (Applause  and  smiles.)  The 
General  was  then  a  little  disposed  to  help  the  other 
side.  Judge  Douglass  went  out  there  to  Illinois 
to  stop  some  men  who  were  raising  regiments  for 
the  South,  and  were  not  to  be  trusted.  Well, 
General  Logan  is  a  gallant  general  and  a  good  sol- 
dier. He  says  that  the  Democratic  party,  after 
forty  years'  control  of  the  Government,  is  respon- 


11 


sible  for  the  condition  of  affairs  at  the  time  the 
Eepublican  party  came  into  power.  I  have  to 
say  in  answer  to  that,  that  during  the 
last  half  of  these  forty  years,  General 
Logan  was  a  member  of  the  Democratic 
party,  helping  them  to  do  this  great  wrong. 
(Great  laughter).  These  men  who  make  so  much 
talk  about  the  Democratic  party  generally  turn  out 
to  be  men  who  have  left  their  party  for  their  party's 
good  (More  laughter).  I  have  heard  the  eloquent 
Logan  again  and  again  speak  in  Congress  against 
embroiling  this  country  by  raising  the  Republican 
(or  Radical)  party  to  power.  General  Logan  says 
that-  the  same  issues  are  before  the  people  to- 
day as  three  years  ago.  But  I  tell  you,  gen- 
tlemen, things  have  progressed  somewhat  since 
then.  We  have  got  to  look  into  the  matter  of 
taxes  and  debts.  He  looks  at  the  debt,  and  what 
does  he  say  about  it  ?  Why,  that  parties  are 
divided  about  it.  For  myself,  gentlemen,  I  never 
would  consent  to  issue,  for  any  purpose,  this  mis- 
erable, debauched  currency,  for  which  the  Repub- 
licans are  alone  responsible  (Approval).  I  hold 
that  our  legal  tender  is  gold  and  silver.  I 
like  the  chink  of  the  old  Democratic  legal  tender 
(Applause).  If  we  are  to  have  paper,  let  us 
make  it  worth  as  much  as  its  face  in  gold  sterling 
coin,  and  we  shall  be  out  of  our  trouble  about 
the  bond  question.  The  policy  of  the  Radical 
party  is  opposed  to  the  fundamental  principles  of 
this  Government.  Before  the  war  they  tried  to 
run  the  Government  on  half  an  idea  (Laughing). 
They  tried  to  concentrate  the  power  of  the  execu- 
tive, the  legislative,  and  the  judicial  departments 
of  the  Government  in  one  department — the  Legis- 
lative. Look  at  the  Reconstruction  act  of  March 
2,  1867 — the  supplementary  supplement  to  a  sup- 
plementary act  (Merriment).  They  said  to  the 
South,  "You  have  got  to  take  military  power  or 
Congressional  power — which  will  you  have  ?"  It 
was  a  pretty  bad  alternative — very  much  like  the 
old  darkey  preacher's  road — one  led  to  destruc- 
tion, and  "  de  oder  to  damnation"  (Peals  of  laugh- 
ter). The  Radicals  have  destroyed  our  constitu- 
tional mode  of  collecting  private  debts,  substitu- 
ting the  military  power.  They  have  replaced  mu- 
nicipal and  State  Governments  by  the  sword,  be- 
lieving that  the  States  were  like  Milton's  angels, 
and  the  sword  could  go  through  them.  They 
have  set  aside,  by  their  legislation,  the  Magna 
Charta  of  the  American  people,  and  rights  that 
have  been  enjoyed  by  our  race  for  800  years.  And 
what  is  all  this  for  ?  It  is  for  negro  suffrage  and 
the  perpetuation  of  African  rule  (Cries  of  "  Yes, 


yes  !")  It  is  to  degrade  the  dignity  of  the  ballot. 
It  is  to  place  us  at  the  mercy  of  a  balance  of 
power  consisting  of  the  black  vote.  It  is  to  dis- 
franchise any  one  of  the  2,000,000  Democratic 
voters  of  the  North  should  he  see  fit  to  go  South 
and  dare  refuse  to  swear  to  protect  and  defend 
the  political  equality  of  the  blacks  and  whites. 
What  do  you  think  of  that,  my  Republican 
friends  ?  And  they  would  make  all  this  irrevoca- 
ble. What  a  spectacle  of  a  party  of  progress 
and  civilization  enacting  that  there  shall  be  no 
change  in  the  fundamental  law  !  My  impression 
is  that  the  November  election  will  overturn  all 
this.  General  Logan  bases  his  opposition  to 
Frank  Blair  upon  the  pretence  that  Frank  Blair 
means  revolution.  But,  my  friends,  it  is  the 
revolution  of  the  ballot-box,  the  revolution  of 
law,  the  revolution  that  the  Supreme  Court  would 
have  secured  if  it  had  not  been  interfered  with 
by  a  Radical  Congress  (Applause).  It  is  the 
revolution  that  comes  from  the  strain  of  the  Rad- 
ical party  to  keep  the  wrong  in  the  ascendancy, 
and  to  break  down  right  in  this  country  (Ap- 
plause and  a  voice  "that's  so.")  They  put  a  plank 
in  their  platform  that  the  Northern  States  may 
regulate  the  suffrage  for  themselves,  but  that  the 
Southern  States  shan't  do  it ;  and  yet  General  Lo- 
gan says  the  States  are  equal.  Their  policy  is, 

"Like  the  snow-flake  on  the  river, 
A  moment  white,  then  gone  forever," 

(Laughter.) 

General  Logan  said  that  his  party  was  the  party 
of  law.  But  they  have  substituted  trial  by  mili- 
tary commission  for  trial  by  jury  ;  they  have  in- 
terfered with  the  Supreme  Court ;  they  have 
broken  down  State  rights  ;  they  have  repealed  the 
laws  controlling  the  currency,  and  destroyed  con- 
stitutional guaranties.  And  they  have  the  au- 
dacity to  ask  Irish  votes  in  the  face  of  a  policy 
towards  the  South  which  is  a  counterpart  of  the 
treatment  of  Ireland  by  Great  Britain  (Applause)^ 
Mr.  Cox  concluded  with  an  earnest  appeal  to 
his  audience  to  adopt  the  principles  of  l&w 
and  justice,  combined  with  mercy  and  concilia- 
tion, and  counseled,  as  a  panacea  for  our  national 
ills,  the  election  of  Seymour  and  Blair.  He  wa* 
warmly  greeted  at  the  close. 


Speech  in  Ninth  Ward,  New  York 
City,  oil  September  29th. 

The  Democracy  of  the  Ninth  Ward  held  an  en- 
thusiastic meeting  at  the  corner  of  Bleecker  and 


12 


Morton  streets  last  evening,   when  Hon.    S.    S. 
Cox  delivered  the  folloAving  address : 

GENTLEMEN  :  I  have  been  rarely  repetitious  in 
my  speeches  during  the  campaign.     I  have  been 
so  often  reported  that  I  have  been  compelled  to 
seek  new  matter  and  fresh  illustrations.     In  my 
humble  way  I  have  exhausted  discussion  growing 
out  of  the  reconstruction  laws,  the  constitutional 
relations   of    the    States,    negro    rule,    military 
power,  taxation  by  external  and  internal  measures, 
and  the  public  debt  and  currency.     But  day  unto 
day  uttereth  speech  of  fresh  "outrages"  by  rea- 
son of  Radical  rule.    Night  unto  night  proclaimeth 
knowledge  of  our  terrible  fiscal  situation.     There 
is  no  limit  to  the  discussion.     The  telegraph  comes 
freighted  with  the  burden  of  Southern  crime  and 
lawlessness.     Each  day  there  is  a  new  budget  of 
nnpropitious  news  from  the  South.     The  black 
and  white  races  are  beginning  to  clinch  for  the 
struggle.     There  is  no  remedy  in  Radical  rule. 
(Cheers.)     The  very  cause  of  the  trouble  cannot 
cure.     It  aggravates.     The  unprosperous  South — 
the  South  which  had  brains  and  bravery  enough 
to  hold  this  nation  at  bay  for  four  years — after 
bowing  to  the  Constitution,  is  abased  before  the 
groveling  negro.       Patient   the   white   man   is; 
skilled  in  political  dialectics,  he  awaits,  without 
yielding  to  the  temptation  to  retaliate,  until  the 
just  judgment  of  the  people  shall  determine  his 
situation.      The   troubles    at    New   Orleans,    in 
Texas,  in  Georgia — the  alarm,  the  robberies,  the 
threats,  the  secret  societies,  the  secret  arming  and 
training,   the  appeals  of  demagogues — these,  are 
but  the  clouds   which  are   gathering  before  the 
great  tempest  breaks.     Why  cannot  the  lightning 
in  their  black  bosom  be  drawn  harmlessly  to  the 
«arth?     Why   may   not   the   storm   be   avoided? 
Were  not  the  Southern  peeple  content  and  allegiant 
when   the   war   ended?     Who  is  the  responsible 
party?     Is  it  not  the  party  of  Congress?     They 
have  claimed  and  wielded  all  power,  controlling 
military,  negro  suffrage,  States  ;    overruling  the 
administration,  its  vetoes,  its  amnesties,   and  its 
prudence.     Whether  these  outrages  and  troubles 
are  justifiable  or  not,  they  are  the  signs  and  proofs 
of  incompetence  and  bad  rule.     The  sign  and  proof 
of  good  rule  is  in  the  prosperity  and  tranquility 
of  the  people.     What  a  failure  in  this  regard  is 
Radical  policy!     What  a  costly  failure! 

RADICALISM  COSTLY. 

In  speaking  of  the  cost  of  bad  government 
it  is  hard  to  over-estimate.  The  cost  is 
o  t  confined  to  mere  administration.  It  is 


he  daily  loss  and  the  constant  hazard.  It  is 
he  breaking  up  of  enterprises  and  the  paralysis  of 
ndustries.  It  is  the  wanton  waste  of  time.  It  is 
he  waste  of  time,  which,  otherwise  employed, 
vould  add  to  our  values,  and  thus  divide  our 
mrdens.  One  great  trouble  attending  political 
liscussion  this  year  has  been  to  obtain  authentic 
ccounts  of  our  expenditures  and  taxes.  Better 
pay  more,  if  you  can  know  what  it  is  for,  and  what 
t  is  yet  to  pay,  than  to  be  paying  all  the  time  hope- 
essly  in  the  dark.  The  people  have  a  right  to  know 
,he  financial  condition.  Mr.  Wells,  Mr.  Atkinson, 
Mr.  Sherman  and  others  have  "  committed  many  a 
rape  on  a  cloud  of  statistics."  They  have  only 
mystified  our  situation.  We  knew  we  were  pay- 
ng  largely.  We  know  that  the  debt  has  been 
growing  lately.  We  knew  that  some  $1,500,000,- 
000  had  been  collected  since  July,  1865.  We 
cnew  that  our  tax  this  year  would  be  near  $400,- 
000,000  ;  but  we  did  not  know  so  authentically 
till  vesterday  how  near  to  bankruptcy  we  were 
verging.  Mr.  Delmar,  the  official  head  of  the 
Statistics  of  the  Treasury,  has  given  us  the  data. 
It  is  a  startling  disclosure.  It  shows  the  incom- 
petency  of  Congress  to  master  the  financial  situa- 
tion. It  shows  that  extravagance  has  held  high 
carnival.  (Cheers.)  It  is  proof,  beyond  cavil, 
either  that  Congress  after  the  election,  will  again 
put  the  people  to  the  tax  torture,  manifold  worse 
than  ever,  or  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
to  save  the  credit  of  the  nation  meanwhile,  must 
increase  the  debt  by  the  issue  of  new  bonds. 

On  the  authority  of  official  reports,  I  affirm  now, 
what  I  affirmed  while  speaking  in  Maine,  for  I 
had  these  data  unofficially  then,  that  our  total 
receipts  the  past  three  years  are  : 

Forl865-6 $613,758783 

For  1866-7 536349.172 

For  1867-8 ^450.212.663 

Total $1,600,320  618 

And  our  total  expenditures  : 

For  1865-6 $57«,477,108 

t-orl866-7     392,444,291 

For  1867-8 414.913,604 

Total $1383,834,998 

Yet,  Avill  you  believe  it?  With  all  these  im- 
mense sums^received,  our  debt  is  now  growing  !  I 
stated  before  what  has  been  controverted,  that  our 
appropriations  for  1868-9  would  be  four  hundred 
millions.  Mr.  Delmar  gives  me  the  the  authentic 
sum  to  be  expended  under  this  Congressional  dic- 
tation. It  is  a  little  more  than  a  million  and  a 
half  less  than  my  statement.  It  is  $398,317,- 
183  95  !  Can  you  wonder  that  labor  grows  de- 


13 


spairing  ;   that  the  people  groan  ;  that  merchant 
sell  less  and  people  buy  less  ;  that  labor  at  evei 
higher  wages  is  not  so  remunerative  as  formerly 
that   commerce  and  shipbuilding  dies ;  that  th 
whole  land  is  in  peril  of   decay  and  waste,  unde 
these   mortgages   which  Radicalism  is  now  fore 
.closing   around     all    our    interests  ?      (Cheers. 
Can  you  wonder,  as  the  statist,  Mr.  Delmar,  says 
that  if  the  Treasury'endeavors  to  meet  its  curren 
expenses  this  year,  there  will  be  a  deficit  at  the 
end  of  the  year  of  $154,339,202  25  !     This  mus 
be  raised  by  new  taxes  or  new  loans  !     Mr.  Bond 
holder !     new    loans    under    such  circumstances 
means  the   tumbling   of  your   present   prices  o: 
bonds  ;  tumbling,    tumbling  into  some   abyss,  to 
what  depth  or  into  what  chaos  I  do  not  undertake 
to  say.     Perhaps  John  Milton  in  one  of  his  tract 
ates,  makes  the  picture — a   sort  of  clear-obscure 
Rembrandt — of  those  who,   aspiring  to  high  dig- 
nity and  rule  by  the  distresses  and  servitude  oJ 
their  country — "  After  a  shameful  end  in  this  life, 
shall  be  thrown  eternally  into  the  darkest  ant 
deepest  gulf  of   hell ;  where  under  the  despiteful 
control,  the  trample   and  spurn  of   all  the  other 
damned,  that  in  the  anguish  of  their  torture  shall 
have  no  other  ease  than  to  exercise  a  raving  and 
bestial  tyranny  over  them  as  their  slaves  and  ne- 
groes, they  shall  remain  in  that  plight  forever, 
the   basest,    the   lowermost,    the   most   dejected, 
most  underfoot  and  downtrodden  vassals  of  perdi- 
tion."    (Cheers.)     If  Seymour  is  not  elected,  and 
this  policy  of  demagoguery  and  ruin  goes  on,  your 
party  and  your  bonds  will   be   in  a  similar  case. 
The  policy  did  go  on  after  the  most  earnest  warn- 
ing of  Mr.  McCulloch ;  it  will  go  on,  in  spite  of 
all  warnings,  except  the  people  give  warning  in 
November.     Perhaps   you  will  prefer,    Mr.    Con- 
gressmen, to  tax  more.    Why  did  you  so  boastful- 
ly cut  down  the  taxes  ?    Mr.  Wells,  in  one  of  his 
reports,  brags   that,  since   the  war,    taxes   have 
been  reduced  $167,269,000.     Suppose  they  have ; 
yet  we  have  no  relief  !     Suppose  they  have  ;   only 
to  be  put  on  again — after  the  election.     It  was  a 
dodge  of  the  demagogue  to  save  the  credit  of  the 
party  at  the  expense  of  the  credit  of  the  nation. 
(Cheers.)  When  we  press  these  points  home  upon 
our  opponents  they  chaunt  the  old  ditty  about  the 
war  and  treason.     This  is  a  convenient  avoidance 
of  the  issues. 

AVOIDANCE  OF  ISSUES. 

The  true  question  is,  what  is  best  now  ?  The 
Rebublican  argues, — what  is  best  in  the  war  ? 
We  respond  the  war  is  over,  and  the  issues  are 


pressing  and  new.  They  reply  that  the  war  is 
still  flagrant.  They,  ask  for  peace.  By  fanning; 
the  embers  of  old  hates,  almost  burned  into  ashes, 
they  would  prevent  the  reception  of  a  proper  pre- 
sent policy.  The  Republican  orators  proceed  on. 
the  falsejaremise  that  the  Democracy  are  rebels, 
because  the  first  were  formerly  in  rebellion  and 
now  in  allegiance  and  with  them.  This,  if  true, 
is  equally  applicable  to  the  Republican  party. 
The  House  and  Senate — not  to  speak  of  Southern 
legislatures — have  radical  rebels,  reconstructed  on 
their  model.  The  bulk  of  the  negroes  helped  re- 
bellion soundly  ;  they  assume,  by  some  sort  of 
petitio  principii,  that  the  Democracy  were  all 
rebels,  and  are  yet,  when  that  premise  is  the  very 
thing  to  be  proved.  The  Democracy  assume 
and  can  prove  that  the  dominant  majority  of  the 
party  are  true  and  patriotic  now  and  ever  have 
been. 

ARE    DEMOCRATS    REBELS? 

The  gravamen  of  the  charge  against  the  Demo- 
cracy is  that  they  were  and  are  unfaithful  to  the 
Union.  It  is  very  hard  for  a  Northern  Democrat 
to  answer  this  with  patience.  If  it  be  true  that 
the  Northern  Democracy  were  untrue  to  their 
allegiance,  then  it  is  true  that  the  party 
was  unfaithful,  for  the  Northern  portion 
was  the  large  majority.  The  Democracy, 
though  distracted  in  its  own  bosom  by  the 
slavery  agitations  of  1844,  1848,  1852  andl  856, 
came  into  a  common  Convention  at  Charleston, 
in  1860.  The  old  platform  of  non-intervention 
with  domestic  relations,  was  adopted,  165  to  138. 
By  Democratic  usage  this  was  the  law  of  our  par- 
;y.  Alabama  led  the  States  south,  into  withdraw- 
al. The  chasm  opened,  but  by  no  help  from  the 
majority  of  that  Convention ;  Douglas  was  nomina- 
ted by  the  lawful  two-thirds  vote.  A  rival  candi- 
date divided  our  party.  He  was  championed  by 
Dix,  Butler,  and  others.  Douglas  received  the 

at  majority  of  our  party  vote.  He  had  1,365,- 
976  against  1,859,610  for  Lincoln.  Bell  received 
590,631,  and  Breckinridge  847,963.  So  that  the 
expression  of  the  Democracy  of  the  nation  was 
ruly  against  the  hot  zealotry  of  the  South. 
Cheers.)  In  connection  with  the  Bell  vote,  it 
was  truly  significant.  In  connection  with  the 
3ell  vote,  it  was  a  majority  of  98,997 — nearly  a 
lundred  thousand  Union  majority  against  secession 
ind  its  Northern  ally,  Republicanism.  I  charge, 
>n  the  statement  of  a  responsible  Republican,  that 
he  allies  of  the  Republicans  were  the  secession. 
sts.  Mr.  Greeley,  said  the  "engineers  of  the  re- 


14 


bellion  desired  and  labored  for  the  Republican 
triumph  of  1860."  And  he  is  equally  true  to  his- 
tory when  he  adds  : 

"  It  was  to  this  end  that  they  forced  through  the 
Senate  of  that  year  the  Jeff.  Davis  platform,  where- 
by Mr.  Douglas  and  his  friends  were  virtually 
read  ont  of  the  Democratic  party  It  was  to  this 
end  that  they  deliberately  and  determinedly  complet- 
ed the  overthrow  of  that  party,  by  bolting  from  the 
Charleston  Convention  and  nominating  Breckin- 
ridge  and  Lane  against  Donglas  and  Johnson.  All 
through  the  canvass  we  Republicans  recognized  and 
treated  the  bolter-!  as  our  virtual  and  powerful  al- 
lies. And  when,  through  their  aid,  we  had  elected 
Lincoln  and  Hamlin.  our  triumph  was  no  -where 
more  generally  or  openly  exulted  over  that  in  Char- 
leston, the  fountain  and  focus  of  the  rebellion. 

And  yet  these  allies  of  the  South,  charge  upon 
the  Northern  Democracy  and  their  Union  and 
Whig  friends  South,  the  crimes  fostered  with  a 
view  to  help  disunion.  The  assertion  that  Dou- 
glas, with  nearly  double  the  vote  of  Brecken- 
bridge,  was  read  out  of  the  party  by  bolters  and 
seceders,  is  not  a  true  statement,  either  in  par- 
tisan parlance  or  ethical  propriety.  What  hap- 
pened when  Lincoln  became  President  of  this 
large  minority  vote?  War  came!  Did  the 
Democracy  of  the  nation  flinch  ?  (Cheers  for 
McClellan.)  Is  it  not  a  libel  to  say  so  ?  Is  it 
not  base  to  charge  those  who  thus  struggled  with 
Douglas  and  Crittenden  ?  The  representatives 
of  the  Bell  and  Douglas  vote,  amounting  to 
nearly  two  million,  being  a  majority  over  the 
Lincoln  vote,  were  the  real  Union  men.  In 
1860-1,  they  sought  to  avert  the  war.  (Cheers.) 
How  they  plead,  how  they  labored,  how  they 
appealed  to  the  rash  South  and  the  fana- 
tic North,  how,  in  the  name  of  the  majority 
of  this  nation,  they  thus  appealed — is  it  not  a 
part  of  the  historic  fame  of  the  Democratic  and 
old  Whig  leaders?  (Cheers.)  Peace  conven- 
tions, compromises,  Border-State  influences,  pe- 
titions, social  and  religious  influences,  and  above 
all,  the  terrible  apprehensions  of  civil  war,  gave 
emphasis  to  their  appeals  and  vigor  to  their  la- 
bors. All  in  vain  !  When  war  came,  this  same 
Democracy,  represented  by  the  majority  of  thi§ 
patriotic  party,  rallied  to  the  Union  !  (Cheers.) 
Is  this  denied  ?  Call  the  roll  of  soldiers  1  Mr. 
Stanton  reports  that  there  were  three  millions 
on  the  army  roll.  Lincoln  received  only  1,850,- 
610  votes.  Where  did  the  rest  come  from  ? 
Were  all  the  warriors  Republicans,  and 
were  all  the  Republicans  warriors  ?  (Laugh 
ter.)  Was  there  not  a  majority  of  the  regiments 
and  officers  Democratic  ?  Who  had  the  means  to 
buy  substitutes  ?  Who  were  the  sneaks  from 
the  army  ?  Were  they  all  Democrats  ?  Who 


ere  the   brave   brigadiers   who  conveniently 
aeld  Willard's  Hotel  when   action   was  appre- 
lended  ?     (Laughter.)     Who  made  Dutch  Gap 
canals,  powder-boat  explosions,  and   noise  gen- 
erally ?     (Laughter.)  Were  they  all  Democrats  ? 
Were  there  not  many  of  them  wide-awake  to  the 
sweet  solace  of  home  ?  (Laughter.)  Guards  of  the 
learthstones   in   the   North.      Were   these  all 
Democrats  ?     If  so,  even  then   there  must  have 
n  as  many  Democrats  as  Republicans  in  the 
war.     The  taxes  to  support  the  army  were  paid 
and  are  being  paid  equally  by  Democrats.     It  is 
simply   monstrous  and   mean  to   say  that  the 
Democratic  party,  represented   by  the   majori- 
ites,  its  leaders,  or  its  tax-payers,  were  confeder- 
ate with  the  rebellion.  1  dare  the  slanderer  to  his 
proof.     If  the  moneyed  classes  number  but  440,- 
300,  as  Mr.  Hine  stated   to  the  Labor   Congress, 
and  the  rest  of    the   adult   males,   which  are 
numbered  in  all  by  him  4,000,000,  are  made  up 
of  men  who  live  by  wages  and  "  middle  men  ;" 
and  if  labor  pays  most  of  the  taxes,  and  if  it  is 
true  that  the  great  body  of  the  laboring  classes 
are  Democrats,   is  it   not  a   fair   inference  that 
the  great  amount  of  taxation  is  paid  by  Demo- 
crats.    (Cheers )     How   execrable,  then,  is  the 
lie  that  the  Democrats  have   not  sustained  the 
Government.     The  men  who  thus  slander  their 
taxed  neighbors,  have  not   even  the  fairness  or 
decency  of  Kit  Burns,  the  rat-baiter,  toward  the 
innocent  Water  street  missionaries ;  "  As  long," 
he  says,  "  as  long  as  they  pays  their  money,  I'll 
treat  'em  square."     (Laughter.)    It  takes  a  good 
deal  of  brass  in  the   cheek  and    a  good  deal  of 
music  in  the   chin  to   perpetually  slander  the 
greatest  number  of  American  people,  as  unpatri- 
otic and   rebellious.     What   are  the  facts  ?     If 
you  cannot  find  them,  Mr.  Radical,  I  can.  When 
the  war  broke  out,  the  first  regiments  West  and 
East  came  from  Democratic  localities.     McClel- 
lan saved  Western  Virginia!  (Cheers.)     Frank 
Blair,  now  hounded,  as  if  a  traitor,  was  refused 
a  vote  at  the  polls  in  the  very  State   he   saved. 
Slocum,  Franklin,  the   Porters,  Steadman,  and 
the  Grand   Army  of  Democratic  generals,  are 
examples.  (Cheers.)    Oh  !  but  it  is  said  :  "  The 
body  of  the   Democratic  people  were  right  and 
sound     but  their  political  leaders  were  not." 
This  is   a   bold   falsehood.     Every    Democratic 
State  Convention   in  the  North,  by  resolution, 
stood  by  the  Government,  when  war   became 
flagrant.     It  will  not  do  to  say,  because  the  Dem- 
ocracy desired  peace,  that  they  were  opposed  to 
fighting  for  the   Union   and  the   Government, 


15 


What  was  the  object  of  the  war  ?  Was  it  car- 
ried on  for  its  carnage  and  devastations  ?  No 
one  but  a  demon  or  a  brute  would  say  so.  Is  it 
not  waged  to  secure  an  object  ?  Is  not  peace  the 
end  proposed  ?  Was  not  peace  and  Union  our 
object?  If,  therefore,  the  Democracy  fought, 
they  at  the  same  time  proposed  Union  and 
peace.  It  is  simply  illogical,  base,  and  coward- 
ly to  say  that  the  Democrats  opposed  the  war, 
because  it  ever  sought  to  end  it  in  the  interest 
of  peace  and  Union. 

I  have  referred  to  the  resolutions  of  our  State 
Conventions.  I  refer  to  the  messages  of  all  the 
Democratic  Governors  we  had  during  the  war — 
Parker,  of  New  Jersey,  and  Seymour.  (Cheers.) 
They  answered  all  calls.  They  were  the  most 
prompt.  Their  record  is  as  stainless  as  crystal. 
Now  go  to  the  record  of  the  first  Congress  after 
the  war  began !  Was  there  ever  in  history  a 
party  so  maligned— an  opposition  party,  opposed 
to  the  canons  of  the  Republicans,  solicitous  of 
peace  and  Union,  and  yet,  when  war  came,  ral- 
lying in  almost  unbroken  phalanx,  and  forget- 
ting all  rivalry  and  animosity,  to  help  its  adver- 
sary in  the  struggle  for  the  Government. 
(Cheers.)  I  have  the  journal  of  the  extra  ses- 
sion beginning  4th  of  July,  1861.  It  was  called 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  no  spirit  of  hostility  to  the 
South.  His  message  was  a  plea  to  the  people 
and  their  representatives  for  a  settled  policy  of 
war.  He  felt  that  there  was  uneasiness  in  the 
public  mind  as  to  the  object  of  the  war.  He 
asked  "  candid  men"  to  heed  him,  "  as  to  the 
course  of  the  Government  toward  the  Southern 
States,  after  the  rebellion  shall  have  been  sup- 
pressed." I  quote  the  very  Italics  of  his  mes- 
sage. After  !  "  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  the 
executive,"  said  he,  "  then  as  ever,  to  be  guided 
by  the  Constitution  and  laws."  He  referred  to 
his  inaugural  as  to  his  recognition  of  the  "rights 
of  the  Sates  and  the  people  under  the  Constitu- 
tion." He  desired  this  instrument  to  be  ad- 
ministered as  it  was  by  the  men  who  made  it. 
*'  It  is  not  perceived  that  there  is  any  coercion, 
any  conquest,  or  any  subjugation,  in  any  just 
sense  of  these  terms."  What  a  commentary  is 
the  last  three  years  of  military  rule  and  negro 
extravaganzas  on  this  message.  I  was  a  mem- 
ber of  that  Congress.  I  frequently  conferred 
with  the  President.  I  believed  he  meant  that 
the  war  should  not  be  for  the  conquest,  or  in 
other  words,  the  spoliation,  and  dismember- 
ment and  degradation  of  the  States.  So  we  all 
voted.  There  were  extreme  men  in  the  first 


Congress  on  both  sides,  but  only  two  or  three  on 
he  Democratic  side.     The  first  declaration,  on 
he  15th   of  July,  pertinent  to  the  issue,  was 
iffered  by   General  McClernand — now    fighting 
for  Seymour  in  Illinois.  (Cheers)     Its  preamble  . 
denounced  the  Southern  aggressive  and  iniquit- 
ous war.     It  pledged  us  by    resolution  to  vote 
any  amount  of  money  and  any  number   of  men 
for  the  restoration  of  Federal  authority   (Cheers.) 
See  the  eighty-sixth  page  of  the  journal,  and 
you  will  find  only  five  nays  against  it      Conk- 
ling  and  Corning  were  side  by  side  ;  Logan  and 
Lovejoy;  English  and  Fenton — and  all  through 
the  roll — Democrats  and   Republicans   as  one  I 
In  a  week  afterwards  Mr.  Crittenden  calfed  me 
to  him,  in  front  of  the  Clerk's  desk,  and  read 
his  famous  resolutions.     My  first  words  to  him 
were — after  reading   it   in  manuscript:  "That 
the   resolution   did    not   quite  tell   the  whole 
truth  when  it  said  that  '  the  present  deplorable 
civil  war  has  been  forced  upon  the  country  by 
the  disunionists  of  the  Southern   States.'"     I 
said:  "  Mr.  Crittenden,  can't  you  insert  North- 
ern disunionists  also  ?"     (Cheers.)     He  replied : 
"  If  I  do   I  cannot   get  a   unanimous  vote,  and 
that  is  so  desirable."     I  said :    "  Very  well ;    it 
has  my  concurrence — unanimity   is   the   great 
object."     The   Democracy   was  ready   to  yield 
much,  nay,  to  yield  their  very   organization   to 
the  adversary,  to  secure  the  object  of  the  war. 
On  the  vote  for  the  preamble  there  is  recorded 
but  two  dissentients — who  were  Democrats  ;  and 
on  the  vote  to  sustain  the  second  branch  of  the 
resolution,  that  the  war  was  not  for  conquest, 
but  for  the  restoration  of  the  States — now  so  fa- 
miliar— there  were  but  two  dissentients — Potter 
and  Riddle — both   Republicans.     For  myself,  I 
never  had  a  desire  or  a  thought  not  in  harmony 
with  these  resolutions.     On  the  29th  of  July  I 
offered  a  resolution  for  "  un diminished  and  in- 
creased exertion  by  army  and   navy  to   sustain 
the  stability  and  integrity  of  the  Government," 
and  at  the  same  time  sought  to  end  the  war  by 
national  methods  in  the  interests  of  the  Union 
of  all  the   States.     This   same   Congress   never 
dreamed  of  regarding  the  States  as  out,  because 
seceding  and  rebellious.     By  the  journal,  page 
203,  you  will  see  the  direct  tax  law  of  twen- 
ty millions,  on  the  States— all — as  States  !     All 
this  farrago  of  reconstruction  is  an  after  thought. 
It  is  born  of  partisan  and  personal  ambition  .It  is 
the  risk  Radicalism  took  for  party  success.  That 
risk  is  the  country's  ruin.    'It  is  anarchy,  dis- 
order, and  bankruptcy.     During  this  extraor- 


16 


dinary  Congress,  no  man  was  so  efficient,  far- 
sighted,  and  sagacious  as  Frank  Blair.  He  was 
at  the  head  of  the  Military  Committee.  He  re- 
ported the  first  bill  for  five  hundred  millions  of 
money,  and  500,000  men  to  suppress  the  rebel- 
lion, but  not  for  conquest.  That  bill  was  ac- 
cepted by  all.  From  that  time  forward — until 
the  war  was  perverted  from  its  original  and  de- 
clared purpose,  there  was  no  more  hearty  or 
more  skillful  aid  given  than  by  the  Democracy. 
What  was  feared  then — what  was  apprehended 
in  1864,  at  Chicago — is  now  accomplished.  The 
war  so  gallantly  fought,  is  resultless  in  its  one 
great  object.  The  Union  is  still  severed.  Con- 
cord, equality,  and  content  are  absent  What 
Is  in  their  place  ?  What  is  not  f  Who  is  re- 
sponsible ?  The  people  will  answer  in  Novem- 
ber, by  the  election  of  Seymour  and  Blair. 
This  Union  may  be  kept  apart  by  negro  and 
military  power,  but  the  interests  of  trade,  the 
love  of  home  and  of  liberty,  the  anxiety  for 
prosperity,  the  burdens  of  taxation  unequal  and 
unjust,  and  the  common  national  glory,  de- 
mand the  Union  as  made  by  the  God  of  Nature, 
and  as  it  came  under  his  direction  to  the  found- 
ers of  our  system.  The  Union  is  of  God  !  Ye 
Radicals  cannot  overthrow  it — lest,  haply,  ye  be 
found  to  fight  against  God  !  (Applause  ) 


Speech  at  Brunswick,  Maine. 

THE    SHIPBUILDERS'    INDICTMENT    OF 
RADICALISM. 


Hon.  S.  S.  Cox,  of  New  York,  addressed  a 
mass  meeting  of  the  Democracy  at  Brunswick, 
Me.,  on  the  3d  September.  Hon.  A.  B  Thomp- 
son presided.  Mr.  Cox's  speech  was  as  follows  : 

SPEECH    OF   HON.    8.    S.    COX. 

CITIZENS  OF  BRUNSWICK  :  I  thank  you  for 
this  enthusiastic  reception  to  a  stranger  I  am 
introduced  to  you  as  from  Ohio  I  am  a  na- 
tive of  an  inland  State ;  but  now,  however,  I 
come  to  you  from  the  commercial  emporium, 
New  York,  my  home.  What  I  say  to  you 
about  commerce  is  of  equal  interest  to  all.  It 
is  your  mission  to  build  ships,  which  once  bore 
the  produce  of  the  West,  though  controlled  by 
the  capital  of  the  East.  Years  ago,  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  a  farmer  peoplej  I  was  forward 
in  contending  for  the  interests  of  commerce. 


Commerce  was  the  select  handmaiden  of  agri- 
culture. Remembering  the  resounding  anthem 
of  Wordsworth : 

"  Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  your  eternal  ?ea," — 

And  knowing  how  steam  and  lightning  had 
abolished  space — and  that  we  "  could  in  a  mo- 
ment travel  thither  with  our  thoughts  and 
produce" — I  strove  in  Congress  and  through 
international  influences  to  give  more  freedom 
to  trade  and  to  the  seas  ;  to  abolish  the  pirati- 
cal practices  yet  prevalent  among  nations,  with 
reference  to  a  mercantile  marine,  as  well  as  to 
abolish  the  robberies  of  land  pirates  by  exac- 
tions at  home  ;  to  give  to  free  ships  free  goods  5 
to  limit  nations  in  their  belligerent  rights,  and 
to  protect  neutrals,  to  stop  blockades  which 
interfered  with  trail e  not  contraband ;  to  so 
control  the  calamities  of  war  that  the  inter- 
changes of  the  nation  might  go  on  unaffected 
by  war ;  and  to  narrow  its  sphere  of  cruelty 
and  spoliation,  so  that  conflicts  upon  the  sea 
should  only  be  a  duello  between  government 
ships  of  war,  and  not  to  att'ect  vessels  and 
property 'of  private  persons  engaged  in  sailing, 
steaming,  or  trading.  The  United  States  once 
had  the  right  to  give  laws  to  the  sea.  Its  first 
treaties  liberalized  commerce.  Its  enterprise 
commanded  advantages.  Was  there  ever  a  peo- 
ple better  fitted  for  sea-faring  ?  Was  not  the 
New  World  born  of  commercial  adventure? 
Were  not  Columbus  and  his  caravel — Isabella 
and  her  jewels — the  very  romance  of  our  con- 
tinent ?  Do  not  the  Americans  bear  the  name 
of  him  who  sailed  hither  by  the  golden  cross  ? 
Did  not  Hudson  immortalize  the  river  which, 
in  the  genius  of  Irving,  immortalizes  Hudson  ? 
Your  own  State  is  the  offspring  of  the  most 
daring  sea  adventures.  From  1602  until  1820, 
when  Massachusetts  gave  you  to  the  Union, 
your  State,  its  lands  and  rights — political  and 
proprietary — have  been  matters  of  commerce — 
French  and  English,  Catholic  and  Protestant. 
Puritan  and  Cavalier,  Republican  and  Royalist, 
have  contended  for  the  mastery  of  your  coasts, 
Thanks  to  the  Federal  principle,  you  became 
one  of  the  United  States,  with  all  the  rights, 
equality,  and  dignity  of  a  State  unimpaired. 
(Cheers.)  I  mistake  the  pioneer  spirit  of  your 
people  if  you  are  not  ready  now  to  yield  to 
others  the  same  equality  (Cheers.)  Under 
this  system  you  have  grown  stately  as  one  of 
your  lofty  pines,  free  as  the  homeless  winds, 
and  as  fearless  as  the  sportive  waves  which 


17 


lave  your  shores.  Nor  do  I  underrate  the  influ- 
ences of  commerce  on  States.  The  Phoenician, 
Roman,  Grecian,  Venetian,  Dutch,  Spanish,  Por- 
tuguese, and  English  advancement  is  traceable  io 
commerce.  Christianity  is  spread  with  its  wings. 
Loyola  soughl;  Jerusalem,  and  Judson  sought 
India  upon  the  bosom  of  the  sea.  I  do  not  ex- 
aggerate its  importance.  But  my  duty  will 
not  be  done  till  I  show  you  the  facts  and  causes 
of  its  decadence.  I  confine  my  remarks  to  this 
one  subject.  It  is  a  subject  that  is  not  only  of 
intense  interest  to  this  Venice  of  America,  that 
sits  enthroned  upon  seas  that  sparkle  in  the 
bright  glory  of  a  thousand  noble  bays  and 
ports,  but  of  the  first  importance  to  the  whole 
people  of  this  country,  from  the  Passama- 
quoddy  to  Alaska.  Of  all  the  natioas  in  the 
world,  the  United  States  possesses  the  most  am- 
ple facilities  for  commerce.  Of  all  the  leading 
nations  of  the  world,  her  commerce  is  the 
most  limited  and  unprofitable.  There  is  no 
need  to  explore  the  El  Dorado  for  its  minute 
tribute  of  golden  sands,  or  push  colonization  to 
the  poles  in  search  of  a  few  tons  of  Arctic  coal. 
The  envied  gold  of  California  is  a  bauble  ;  the 
precious  furs  in  Onelaska's  wilds  are  a  paltry 
prize ;  nay,  the  entire  wealth  of  the  Pacific 
shores  fades  into  insignificance  when  compared 
with  the  riches  that  lie  at  our  very  doors,  and 
that  may  be  derived  from  that  commerce  which 
was  once  our  country's  pride,  and  the  main 
source  of  her  envied  prosperity,  and  to  which 
the  State  of  Maine,  in  her  capacity  as  the 
builder  of  those  magnificent  vessels  in  which 
this  commerce  was  borne,  so  powerfully  contri- 
buted. On  the  Atlantic  coast  we  have  six 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-one  miles  of 
shore -line,  including  bays,  sounds,  etc.  On  the 
Pacific  coast,  without  counting  Alaska,  we  have 
two  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty-one 
miles.  On  the  Gulf  we  have  three  thousand 
four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  miles.  And  on 
the  Lakes  under  our  sovereignty,  we  have 
three  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
This  makes  a  total  of  sixteen  thousand  two 
hundred  and  twenty-nine  miles  of  shore  line. 
It  is  a  line  equal  in  length  to  over  two-thirds 
the  circumference  of  the  globe  !  If  to  this  be 
added  nine  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty- 
seven  miles  of  shore  line  to  the  islands  on  our 
coast,  and  eleven  thousand  two  hundred  and 
thirteen  miles  of  river  shore  line  to  the  head  of 
tide  water,  we  have  a  grand  total  of  thirty-six 
thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty-nine  miles  of 
2 


'  shore — a  line  that,  if  perfectly  straight,  would 
extend  nearly  twice  around  the  globe  !  Besides 
this,  we  have  thirty-six  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred and  fifty-four  miles  of  river  navigation, 
and  a  chain  of  gigantic  lakes — inland  seas — 
that  extends  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  slope 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  And  as  if  these  im- 
mense facilities  for  water  carriage  were  not 
enough,  the  hands  of  our  busy  forefathers  have 
constructed  for  us  four  thousand  two  hundred  and 
sixty-six  miles  of  canal  navigation.  These  are 
our  incalculable  facilities  for  commerce.  These 
are  the  endless  channels  of  employment  for  ship- 
ping and  for  the  commerce  of  the  United  States. 
And  yet,  with  shame  and  lamentation  I  confess 
that  our  commerce  does  not  amount  to  one  half 
of  that  of  the  little  kingdom  of  Great  Britain ! 
Is  it  because  our  shores  have  no  harbors  and 
and  our  rivers  are  too  shallow  for  navigation? 
We  have  more  harbors  to  every  mile  of  coast  line 
than  any  country  in  the  world.  Our  rivers  are 
the  broadest  and  deepest,  and  have  but  a  single 
rival  elsewhere — where  rolls  the  boundless  Ama- 
zon. The  State  of  Maine  alone  has  more  harbors 
than  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain  five  times  over. 
You  may  paddle  a  steamship  from  Pittsburg 
in  Pennsylvania  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
a  distance  of  2,000  miles,  without  getting  out  of 
fresh  water.  Is  it  because  we  have  no  material 
for  building  ships  ?  Have  we  not  the  skill  ?  Do 
we  suffer  for  want  of  capital  or  lack  of  workmen? 
We  have  the  finest  timber  in  the  world,  and  the 
most  of  it.  Indeed  the  export  of  lumber  to  other, 
and  in  this  respect,  less  favored  countries,  is  one 
of  the  few  industries  which  the  wretched,  tinker- 
ing, legislation  of  the  day  has  left  us.  Surely  if 
Radicalism  has  left  us  any  timber  in  our  forests, 
there  could  be  no  better  evidence  of  its  luxuriant 
growth !  (Laughter.)  The  pine  forests  of  Maine 
are  one  of  the  boasts  of  our  country.  The  long 
deep  planking  is  brought  from  the  Susquehanna ; 
the  stout  oak  knees  and  frames  are  hewn  on  the 
eastern  shores  of  Maryland,  or  felled  in  the 
silence  of  the  Dismal  Swamp.  God  has  given 
us  all  the  things  we  need  for  shipbuilding.  The 
hands  of  a  horde  of  petty  tyrants  and  conceited 
economists  have  swept  them  away.  Nq  shipwrights 
that  ever  handled  an  adze  can  compare  with  the 
skilled  sons  of  this  State.  Their  ships  were  the 
envy  of  foreigners,  and  the  boast  of  every  Ameri- 
can. They  were  at  once  models  of  grace  and 
symmetry.  They  were  wonders  of  speed  and 
strength.  Not  only  did  these  noble  ships  at  one 

time  carry  the  main  portion  of  the  commerce  of 


18 


the  Christian  world,  but  they  were  sought  after 
and  purchased  to  such  an  extent  that  their  build- 
ing and  sale  to  foreign  flags  was  once  a  large  and 
profitable  business.  As  for  capital  and  workmen, 
what  are  the  facts  ?  We  have  millions  and  mil- 
lions of  money  going  a  begging  for  secure  invest- 
ment at  four  per  cent,  per  annum.  Why  is  it 
temporarily  withheld  from  honest  employment? 
Is  it  in  dread  of  that  financial  crash  which  the 
measures  of  that  party  now  in  power  has  rendered 
so  imminent  that  we  know  not  what  calamity  the 
morrow  will  bring  forth  ?  Meanwhile  our  work- 
ingmen  stand  idly  by,  bereft  of  employment  alto- 
gether, or  are  compelled  to  abandon  their  proud 
and  honest  calling  for  a  precarious  living  in  some 
other  less  remunerative  and  less  congenial  voca- 
tion. I  quote  from  the  official  report  of  one  who, 
more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  man  in  this  broad 
country,  is  noted  for  an  entire  absence  of  poetry 
of  passion  in  his  writings,  and  whose  life  has 
been  spent  in  the  collection  and  preparation  of 
facts.  I  allude  to  the  present  able  and  efficient 
Director  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Statistics, 
Hon.  Alexander  Delmar.  Surely  here  is  a  source 
from  which  no  coloring-  is  to  be  apprehended  ;  and 
yet  this  officer,  in  an  official  report  to  the  Govern- 
ment on  the  condition  of  the  shipbuilding  interest, 
used  this  graphic  language  in  reference  to  a 
visit  he  made  in  the  prosecution  of  his  official 
duty,  to  the  ship-yard  of  Donald  McKay,  in  East 
Boston : 

His  once  famous  ship-yard  was  entirely  deserted  ; 
not  a  sound  was  to  be  heard ;  riot  a  single  person 
beside  Mr.  McKay  himself  was  there.  No  building 
materials  were  to  be  seen;  no  vessel  was  being 
built ;  nor  had  one  been  in  course  of  construction 
for  over  a  yezir.  Mr.  McKay  stated  that  he  had 
fifteen  keels  down  at  atim^;  now  he  had  not  one. 
There  was  no  sale  for  American  ves-sels  other  than 
the  small  craft  employed  in  the  coasting  trade— a 
cla^s  of  vessels  he  did  not  construct.  First-class 
ships  he  formerly  built  and  equipped  ready  for  sea, 
from  $65  to  $70  per  ton  ;  now  the  same  vessels  would 
cost  $110  per  ton  ;  an  investment  which  would 
afford,  no  profit  to  the  merchants  who  employ 
such  vessels.  The  merchants  could  do  better  by 
investing  in  government  securities,  which  yield  six 
per  cent,  in  gold,  on  currency  investments,  which 
are  exempted  from  taxation.  In  the  British  pro- 
vinces the  same  class  of  vessels  can  now  be  built 
and  equipped  ready  for  sea  for  $40  to  $50  gold  per 
ton— about  half;  and  this,  too,  after  buying  the  oak 
timber  in  Maryland.  If  this  state  of  affairs  con- 
tinue a  few  years  longer,  the  nation  would  not  own 
a  vessel  which  could  be  used  as  a  war  transport  in 
the  event  of  a  war.  All  our  cotton  carrying  is  done 
bv  foreign  vessels.  Our  tonnage  statistics  for  the 
ma  n  part  comprise  vessels  engaged  in  coasting  and 
inland  navigation— very  few  sea-going  ships.  As 
to  ship  building  generally,  it  is  the  same  with  others 
as  with  himself.  The  industry  is  at  a  stand  still 
Those  who  were  engaged  in  it  have  gone  into  some- 
thing else.  He  himself  was  no  longer  engaged  in 
building  vessels,  but  in  carrying  freight  and  pas- 
sengers in  the  coasting  trade.  He  was  running  two 
steamers  to  Charleston.  He  could  not  sell  them, 
and  had  nothing  else  to  do  but  run  them.  As  for  his 


workmen  they  had  gone  into  other  trades — som& 
into  speculation.  He  mentioned  an  enterprising 
shipsmith  who  had  already  become  an  active  stock 
speculator.  The  year  of  1854-55  was  the  best  year 
of  active  shipbuilding  in  thp  United  States — say  the 
fourteen  months  following  the  beginning  of  1854. 
From  1855  it  declined  somewhat  during  1857,  1858, 
ind  1859.  Then  it  went  up  again,  until  in  1861  it 
ouched  almost  as  high  a  point  as  it  had  in  1854-55. 
During  1862  it  declined  again,  but  not  so  much  as 
t  had  during  1857,  1858,  and  1859.  In  863  it  re- 
lovered  its  former  level  once  more,  but  soon  after- 
wards sank  down  much  lower  than  in  1857  and  1859, 
and  now  in  1866  it  was  almost  at  an  end. 

The  same  evidence  comes  from  New  York  City. 
The  great  ship-yard  of  Mr.  Webb  is  closed.  Our 
cotton  goes  out — all  of  it — under  foreign  flags. 
Our  merchants  are  sending  and  receiving  most 
of  our  produce  by  steam,  and  we  have  no  foreign 
steam  marine  under  our  flag.  Commerce  is  dead. 
We  know  the  fact.  It  would  be  idle  to  lament, 
unless  we  are  active  to  remedy.  What  better 
evidence  than  this  is  wanted  of  the  decay  of  an 
interest  that  was  once  among  the  foremost  of 
this  country  ?  But  let  us  now  follow  this  officer 
in  his  progress  through  the  ship-yards  of  the 
country.  Then,  having  established  the  fact  of 
this  decadence,  let  us  trace  it  to  its  cause.  Evidence 
of  Edward  S.  Tobey,  shipowner,  Boston : 

Mr.  Tobey  stated  that  there  was  no  doubt  about 
the  decadence  of  shipbuilding.  Prior  to  the  war,  he 
said,  we  could  compete  with  all  nations  in  con- 
structing vessels ;  materials  were  more  plentiful 
here,  and  we  had  the  reputation,  and  still  have  it, 
of  being  best  skilled  in  this  industry.  But  the  heavy 
taxation  to  which  we  had  been  subjected  has  caused 
thjs  once  most  important  interest  to  decline.  Mr. 
Tobey  expressed  the  opinion  "  that  a  remedy  can  be 
provided  for  this  state  of  aiFairs  by  legislation." 

Evidence  of  SylvanusC.  Blanchard,  shipbuilder. 
Yarmouth. 

Shipbuilding,  as  an  industry,  was  clearly  on  the 
decline,  arid  it  required  but  a  short  time  longer  to 
tee  it  entirely  fade  away.  The  reason  of  this  was 
the  high  taxes.  If  by  another  year,  (this  was  in  the 
fall  of  1866.)  Government  afforded  no  relief,  he  would 
not  build  anoi  her  ship,  but  would.go  out  of  the  busi- 
ness entirely. 

Evidence  of  Joseph  W.  Dyer,  shipbuilder,  Port- 
land. 

Mr  IJyer  has  no  vessels  on  the  stocks.  His  ship- 
yard is  entirely  deserted.  No  stock  of  building  ma- 
terials on  hand.  The  portion  of  his  capital  invested, 
in  shiplofts  and  shipyard  is  lying  idle  ;  and  so  long 
as  shipbuilding  is  at  its  present  low  ebb  it  will  have 
to  continue  to  lie  idle.  He  stated  that  shipbuilding 
was  all  over  for  the  present.  Never  was  so  idle 
since  he  was  fourteen  years  of  age  as  he  was  now  ; 
has  always  been  accustomed  to  build  a  couple  of 
vessels  a  year,  but  was  now  lying,  so  to  say,  on  the 
flat  of  bis  back. 

Evidence  of  G.  W.  Lawrence,  shipbuilder,  Port- 
land. 

Mr.  Lawrence  had  but  one  large  ship  on  the  stocks, 
and  this  one  he  was  in  no  hurry  to  finish,  as  there 
was  nothing  for  her  to  do.  The  shipbuilding  indus- 
try is  utterly  dead. 


19 


Evidence  of  William  and  James  Drummond, 
shipbuilders,  Bath. 

Shipbuilding  is  at  a  stand  still.  Have  two-ship^ 
that  have  been  going  for  two  years,  and  have  not 
realized  the  bare  interest  on  the  capital  invested  in 
them.  There  is  not  a  keel  laid  in  Bath  this  year; 
(this  was  in  the  fall  of  1866.)  and  Bath  is  known  to 
he  the  principal  shipbuilding  district  in  the  United 
States.  Our  foreign  carrying  trade  is  at  an  end. 
One  of  the  greatest  industries  of  this  country,  and 
one  of  its  greatest  glories  in  times  past,  consisted  in 
the  carrying  trade,  and  the  vessels  engaged  in  it. 
These  vessels  were  to  be  seen  engaged  in  the  trade  in 
all  parts  of  the  world.  There  are  now  seen  no  more. 
Both  as  a  matter  of  national  pride  and  of  great  na- 
tional moneyed  interest,  care  should  be  .taken  that 
this  enormous  industry  should  revive. 

Evidence  of  George  F.  Patten,  shipbuilder. 
Bath. 

Mr.  Patten  stated  that  the  business  of  ship-build- 
ing was  almost  at  an  end.  There  was  nothing  do- 
ing :  the  business  was  virtually  ended.  There  was 
no  demand  for  vessels,  because  the  carrying  trade 
was  being  done  by  other  nations  who  were  tree  to 
buy  their  ships  were  they  pleased. 

Evidence  of  E.  and  A.  Sewell,  shipbuilders, 
Bath. 

Ship  building  is  in  a  bad  way  ;  business  very  dull. 
One  of  the  partners  drew  a  gloomy  picture  of  the 
state  of  the  industry. 

Evidence  of  Captain  N.  L.  Thompson,  ship- 
builder, Kennebunk. 

He  spoke  of  the  sore  necessities  of  the  ship-build- 
ing trade.  He  wanted  no  bounties  and  no  favors 
from  the  Government,  but  a  lowering  of  the  duties 
on  iron,  and  the  other  principal  materials  that  en- 
tered into  the  construction  of  a  vessel. 

Evidence  of  Joseph  Titcombe,  shipbuilder,  Ken- 
nebunk. 

The  building  of  first-class  vessels  was  at  a  stand- 
still, and  the  knowledge  of  the  art  would  pass  away 
unless  the  great  press-ure  of  taxation  which  now  ex- 
ists is  mitigated.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  great  carrying 
trade  of  the  ocean  should  not  be  participated  in  by 
the  United  States.  She  was  once  the  principal  na- 
tion engaged  in  this  lucrative  business,  but  it  has 
slowly,  and  within  the  past  three  years  rapidly, 
fallen  into  other  hands. 

Mr.  Sampson,  of  East  Boston,  Mr.  Laskey,  of 
East  Boston,  Messrs.  McKay  and  Alden,  of  East 
Boston,  Mr.  Townsend,  of  East  Boston,  John  Tay- 
lor, of  East  Boston,  Curtiss  and  Tilden,  of  East 
Boston,  and  a  large  number  of  others,  including 
W.  H.  Webb,  and  Webb  &c  Bell,  Lawrence  & 
Foulk,  J.  Simonson,  T.  F.  Rowland,  and  E.  S 
Whitlock,  of  New  York,  all  of  them  practical, 
ship-builders,  give  evidence  to  the  same  state  of 
facts,  which  since  this  evidence  was  taken,  has 
grown  still  worse.  The  industry  is  dead  ;  and 
the  cause  is  inordinate  duties,  high  taxes.  This 
is  the  common  story  from  all.  Thousands  of 
our  best  mechanics  are  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment, while  the  commerce  of  the  seas  is  increas- 
ing with  tremendous  strides,  and  the  outside 


world  is  calling  for  more  ships  in  which  to  carry 
its  commerce.  Great  Britaii  has  increased  her 
tonage  from  a  little  over  4,000,000  in  1860  to 
9,000,000  in  1868.  France  has  grown  from  a  mil- 
lion and  a  half  to  three  millions.  The  United 
iStatt-s,  which  in  the  former  year  boasted  a  ton- 
age  of  over  5,353,868,  can  now  scarcely  show 
3,000,000,  or  less  than  we  possessed  in  1848  ! 
Now  let  us  see  what  this  dead  interest  was  worth 
to  us.  According  to  our  official  statement  of  the 
Treasury  Department,  there  was  sold  to  foreign- 
ers from  the  year  1828  to  the  year  1867  inclusive : 
Merchant  vessels  with  an  aggregate  tonage  of 
1,387,752,  equal  to  an  annual  average  of  34,604 
tons.  The  total  value  of  these  vessels  sold  was 
at  §40  gold  per  ton,  $55,510,080— equal  to  any 
annual  average  of  $1,387,753,  fully  one-fifth  of 
which  was  profit,  and  mostly  to  the  State  of 
Maine.  (Cheers.)  According  to  another  official 
statement  on  the  subject,  the  freight  and  pas- 
senger receipts  of  our  foreign  shipping  alone, 
were  in  1868,  nearly  thirty-four  million  dollars 
gold.  In  1868  this  had  fallen  to  a  little  over 
seventeen  million  dollars  gold — or  one-half ;  a 
clear  loss  of  the  remainder,  and  this,  too,  with 
enhanced  prices.  The  earning  of  our  coasting 
vessels,  about  forty  million  dollars  a  year,  had 
not  decreased,  the  Navigation  Act  excluding 
all  foreign  competition  in  this  trade,  and  com- 
pelling the  shippers  to  pay  whatever  freight 
the  ship-owner  was  obliged  to  demand.  (A 
voice,  "  that's  so.")  But  see  the  effect  of  this 
mad  restriction  !  The  -cotton  merchant  of  the 
South,  the  grain  merchant  of  the  West,  the'  beef 
and  pork  packers,  the  naval  store  and  lumber 
merchants,  who  are  thus  compelled  to  pay  in- 
ordinate freights,  either  charge  them  indirectly 
in  the  prices  of  the  commodities  which  in  some 
way  or  another  we  have  to  buy  and  consume  ; 
or  finding  that  the  high  price  of  coasting  and 
river  and  lake  freight  makes  it  as  cheap  for 
them  to  ship  by  railroad,  prefer  the  roads.  The 
result  is  the  roads  carry  freight  that  might  oth- 
orwise  come  cheaper  by  water,  and  consequent- 
ly you  have  to  pay  for  flour  fifteen  dollars  a  bar- 
rel, and  for  cotton  thirty  cents  a  pound  ;  while 
nobody  is  the  gainer  by  it.  The  carrying  trade 
remains  depressed,  and  the  railroads,  through 
ruinous  competition,  fail  to  pay  their  dividends. 
To  trace  these  consequences  still  further  would 
take  up  too  much  time  ;  but  we  can  see  them  in 
neglected  road-beds,  and  rotten  vessels,  and  fatal 
accidents,  and  loss  of  life  by  sea  and  land. 
Look  at  this  comparison  of  prices  before  and 


20 


Since.    ' 
Gold  at  140 
$  17  00 
74  00 
55  00 

100  00 

S* 

17 


since  the  war.  Teil  me  how  it  is  possible,  un- 
der this  ruinous  system  of  taxation,  and  still 
more  ruinous  system  of  false  currency,  to  revive 
an  industry  that  was  once  worth  seventy-five 
millions  a  year  in  earnings,  and  half  a  mil- 
lion more  in  profit  on  sales  to  foreigners,  while  its 
agency  furnished  us  with  cheap  food,  cheap 
clothing,  and  cheap  materials  with  which  to 
build.  Look  at  the  following  comparison  of 
prices  before  and  since  the  war  : 

Before. 
Gold  at  par. 

Timber,  per  ton $  9  00 

Oak    plank,   per  ton 4000 

Ueck  planking 2000 

Ships  built  and  equipped, 
ready  for  sea,  per  ton...        60  00 

Iron,  per   pound 02 >£ 

Metal,  per   pound 20 

Paints,  per  pound 03 

Sails  and  rigging  now  cost  about  three  times 
as  much  as  before  the  war,  and  many  small  ar- 
ticles of  ship  furniture  four  and  five  times  as 
much.  To  build  a  large  ship  that  will  cost  say 
$96,650 — (I  am  now  quoting  an  actual  instance, 
that  of  a  vessel  that  measured  1,327  tons,  new 
measurement)— your  wood  materials  will  cost 
you  $26,950  ;  your  iron,  $12,400,  your  composi- 
tion and  yellow  metal,  $2,000 ;  your  cordage 
$11,000 ;  your  other  materials,  $5,000  ;  your 
labor  $25,000  ;  your  other  expenses,  $3,400,  and 
your  business  charges,  $10,800.  I  have  the  de- 
tails. I  will  not  read,  but  print  them : 

Estimate,  exhibiting  the  total  cost  of  a  Maine- 
built  ship  of  1,327  tons,  new  measurement, 
or  1,  223  tons,  old  measurement. 

WOOD   MATERIAL. 

White  oak  timber,  600  tons,  for  frame 

ceiling,  and  beams $12,000 

White  oak  plank,  82,000   feet 4,000 

Freight  on  timber 1,600 

Surveyor's  fees 150 

Hard  wood,  23,000  feet 700 

Spruce  lumber  or  lower  deck,  21,000. 

feet 400 

Pine  lumber,  20,000  feet 1,000 

Spars 1,400 

Pine  decking,  55,000  feet 1,700 

White  oak  and  locust  trunnels 1,000 

Norway  carlins,  12,000 400 

Spruce  plank  and  cross-bands,  27,000  ^500 

Hackmatack  knees,  and  planing  same  1,800 

Black  walnut  and  cherry  lumber 100 

Total $26,950 


IRON. 

Cast  iron 

Common  and  refined  English  iron  for 

fastening  ship. 

Chains  and  anchors  and  small  chains 


Total. 


400 

7,500 
4,500 

$12,400 


LABOR. 


Carpenters'  and  fasteners'  labor 14,000 

Joiners'  labor 4,000 

Blacksmiths' 1,700 

Painters'.. 500 

Spar-makers' 750 

Riggers' 850 

Sail-makers' 400 

Caulkers' .- 1,300 

Carvers.' 3,00 

Watchmen  during  building 350 

Rafting  and  gondolaing 100 

Trucking 1,00 

Ox^labor  ;  hauling  and  hoisting. . . .  750 

Total... $25,100 


TEXTILE    MATERIALS. 


Cordage,  bolt  rope,  &c. 
Hemp  and  Manilla. . . , 

Oakum . 

Duck. . 


$400 

6,500 

800 

3,300 


Total $11,000 

OTHER    MATRIALS 

Salt  (for  preserving  timbers) 1,000 

Paints,  oils,  and  glass 800 

Blocks 1,000 

Capstans 300 

Pumps 400 

Binnacle  and  compasses 150 

Three  boats 300 

Water  tanks 400 

Cabin  furniture  (including  bedding)  500 

Crockery 150 


Total, 


OTHER  EXPENSES. 

Machinists'  bill 

Plumbers's  bill,  stock  and  work. . . . 
Ship    chandler'  bill 


Total. 


$5,000 


$700 
1,000 
1,700 

$3,400 


21 


BUSINESS    CHARGES. 

Taxes — internal  revenue  taxes  on 
spars,  and  sails 

County,  State,  and  Corporation  taxes 

Builder's  commission,  (the  usual 
charge  $3  to  $5  per  ton,)  for  use  of 
yard,  for  personal  superintendence 
&c. 

Interest  account 

Sundry  small  bills 


Total 


$1,500 
600 


4,000 
3,000 
1,700 

$10,800 


Now  let  us  see  where  the  rub  is !  The  cost  of 
the  Government  in  this  year  of  peace  is  over  400 
million  dollars,  of  which  no  less  than  130  million 
in  gold  goes  to  pay  the  interest  on  the  public  debt, 
and  130  millions  more  to  keep  a  standing  army  in 
the  Southern  States,  and  feed  a  parcel  of  lazy 
freedmen  from  the  Freedman's  Bureau.  Do  you 
know  what  260  millions  amount  to  ?  260  millions 
will  buy  the  whole  animal  crop  of  this  country. 
It  will  feed  every  living  soul  within  it  on  the  staff 
of  life  for  a  year.  260  millions  will  build  several 
railroads  from  here  to  the  Pacific.  It  will  buy  all 
the  shipping  of  the  country,  and  even  then  will 
leave  a  few  odd  millions  for  "contingent  expen- 
ses,'' pocket-knives,  $25  gold  pens,  mileage,  &c. 
Now  this  400  millions  of  expenditures  has  to  be 
met  by  taxation.  Of  this  taxation  nearly  half  is 
levied  at  the  Custom  House.  The  timber  that 
builds  the  ship  and  furnishes  her,  is  taxed  20  per 
cent.  The  iron  bolts  and  chains,  the  nails, 
screws,  spikes,  anchors,  cables,  straps  and 
rings,  are  taxed  from  80  to  120  per  cent. 
The  sheathing  metal  pays  3-j-  cents  per  Ib. 
The  paints  pay  3  cents  per  pound,  and  even  the 
putty  is  taxed  a  cent  arid  a  half.  The  ropes  pay 
from  2£  to  3£  cents  per  pound,  and  the  sail  duck 
30  per  cent,  while  the  very  salt  to  stow  between 
the  timbers  pays  18  cents  per  hundred  pounds, 
which  is  over  one  hundred  per  cent,  ad  valorem  ; 
and  many  other  articles  from  two  to  three  times 
their  entire  value.  Remember  all  this  is  paid  in 
gold.  Where  does  this  money  come  from  ?  From 
the  shippers  who  pay  the  heavy  freights.  Who 
reimburses  the  shippers  ?  The  people  who  con- 
sume the  freights.  Where  does  this  money  go  ? 
To  support  an  army  and  a  Freedman's  Bureau, 
and  a  horde  of  official  panderers  and  sharpers  who 
absorb  the  people's  money ;  supporting  the  soup 
ladle  for  the  benefit  of  the  negro  who  is  smart 
enough  to  rule  and  vote,  but  not  smart  enough  to 
earn  a  living  without  your  aid.  (Cheers  and 


laughter.)  Four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  are 
every  year  taken  from  the  people  to  support  a 
Government  that  eight  years  ago  cost  but  forty- 
one  millions  per  annum  or  one  tenth  the  amount. 
The  taking  of  this  four  hundred  millions  enhances 
the  price  of  everything  we  eat,  drink,  wear,  and 
use.  It  stops  the  wheels  of  industry.  It  entire- 
ly destroys  an  interest  (ship -building)  that  former- 
ly yielded  a  gross  income  to  the  nation  of  seventy- 
five  millions  per  annum,  besides  a  large  annual 
I  profit  to  this  State  in  the  building  of  ships.  It 
!  has  ruined  our  export  trade  to  South  America, 
and  the  West  and  East  Indies.  It  has  driven  our 
!  best  business  men  from  legitimate  callings  to  gam- 
i  bling  on  the  stock  exchange.  It  has  locked  up 
most  of  the  available  capital  in  the  country,  re- 
j  duced  our  best  workmen  to  distress,  and  discour- 
aged all  classes  of  honest  men,  who  with  cramped 
|  means  and  no  .provision  for  to-morrow,  look  on 
with  sullen  discontent,  while  the  parasites  and 
swindlers  of  the  hour  sweep  by  in  gay  carriages, 
and  run  riot  in  extravagance  and  dissipation.  To 
give  you  an  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  our  trade 
has  passed  out  of  our  hands,  I  state  that  eighteen 
years  ago  (in  1850)  our  imports  amounted  to 
$178,138,318  per  annum,  of  which  but  $38,481,- 
275,  or  about  one-fifth,  was  carried  in  foreign  ves- 
sels, and  the  remainder  in  American  vessels ; 
while  in  1867,  last  year,  when  our  imports  amount- 
ed to  $417,831,571,  nearly  three-fourths,  or 
$300,622,035,  was  carried  in  foreign  vessels,  and 
only  $117,209,536  in  American  vessels.  The 
same  proportions  hold  good  with  respect  to  the 
export  trade.  Not  only  this,  but  the  trade  itself 
has  fallen  off,  and  reduced  national  profits  by 
millions  of  dollars,  while  it  has  curtailed  the  oc- 
cupations of  the  people,  and  left  them  fewer 
means  of  livelihood  to  choose  from.  All  this  is 
directly  traceable  to  the  false  and  ruinous  legisla- 
tion of  the  day.  In  1860  our  domestic  exports 
amounted  to  372  millions  in  gold ;  in  1867,  they 
had  fallen  to  334  milions  gold,  a  decline  of  39  mil- 
lions, or  over  10  per  cent.  During  the  same  period 
the  domestic  exports  of  the  United  Kingdom  had 
increased  237  millionrdollars,  or  30  per  cent.,  and 
those  of  France  226  millions  or  43  per  cent.  In 
other  words,  while  we  have  gone  back  10,  they 
have  gone  forward  respectively  30  and  43 !  In 
1860  we  sent  196  millions  of  exports  to  Great 
Britain  ;  last  year  we  sent  but  183  millions.  In 
1860  we  sent  59  millions  of  exports  to  France ; 
last  year  but  34  millions.  In  1860  we  sent  18 
millions  to  British  North  America  ;  last  year  but 
15  millions.  To  Cuba  we  sent  eleven  millions  ; 


last  year  but  ten.  To  Brazil  the  same,  and 
so  011  all  through  the  list  of  countries  from  A 
to  Z. 

In  1860  our  import  trade  amounted  to  as  much 
as  it  did  this  year,  and  with  the  exception  of  the 
imports  from  great  Britian  and  Canada,  that 
trade  was  greater  than  it  is  now  with  every  fo- 
reign country  that  deals  with  us.  The  imports 
from  Brazil  amounted  to  twenty-one  millions ; 
they  have  dropped  to  sixteen  ;  from  France  they 
were  forty-three  millions  ;  they  have  dropped  to 
thirty  ;  from  China  they  were  thirteen  millions  ; 
they  have  dropped  to  eleven  ;  from  the  British 
East  Indies  they  were  ten  millions ;  they  have 
dropped  to  seven  ;  and  so  on  all  through  the  list. 
I  quote  sums  always  in  gold,  so  that  there  can  be 
no  dispute  about  the  comparisons.  The  trade  of 
the  other  leading  nations  of  the  world  has  mean- 
while, advanced  with  giant  strides.  Do  you  ask 
the  cause  of  this  decadence  ?  I  reply  taxation, 
taxation,  TAXATION.  (Cheers.)  Last  year  no 
less  than  $31,929,522,  nearly  $32,000,000  in  gold 
was  levied  on  sugar  and  molasses  alone.  The 
sworn  value  of  the  same  was  $46,343,123,  so  that 
the  duties  amounted  to  three-fourths  as  much  as 
the  value  ;  it  was  nearly  doubling  the  price  of  the 
article  to  the  consumer.  When  it  is  remembered 
that  we  annually  import  for  consumption  1,000,- 
000,000  pounds  of  sugar  and  50,000,000  gallons 
of  molasses,  the  fearful  nature  of  this  burden  can 
be  appreciated.  On  tea  a  duty  of  25  cents  per 
pound  in  gold  is  levied,  as  much  again 
as  the  average  value  per  pound  of  the 
tea  on  entry.  From  this  source  alone 
the  sum  of  $8,292,425  was  derived.  From 
coffee  $7,982,248  ;  so  that  on  those  three  articles 
tea,  sugar,  and  coffee,  the  enormous  sum  of  $48,- 
204,195,  nearly  $50,000,000  in  gold  was  obtained. 
When  you  recollect  that  these  articles  are  mainly 
consumed  by  the  masses,  you  will  understand  who 
pays  for  the  burdens,  and  why  the  purchase  of 
tea,  sugar,  and  coffee,  runs  away  with  half  of  a 
poor  man's  income. 

TEADE  WITH   CANADA  FOE,  1866  AND  1867. 


Imp  arts 


Exp  arts 


mp( 

from  Cana  <a.  to   Canada. 

1866 $46,199,470  $12,104,647 

1867 26,397,867  9,719,261 

The  figures  are  still  in  gold  value,  and  are 
taken  from  the  official  accounts  of  the  Treasury 
Department.  They  show  that  in  1866,  the  last 
year  of  the  Reciprocity  Treaty,  we  did  business 
with  Canada  to  the  extent  of  $58,304,084  per 
annum,  and  that  when  that  treaty  was 


abrogated,  this  annual  trade  fell  to  $36,117,124; 
over  twenty-two  millions  lost  in  a  single  year. 
This  twenty-two  millions  of  traffic  was  princi- 
pally lost  to  the  people  of  Maine,  across  whose 
borders  the  trade  with  Canada  is,  or  rather  was, 
mainly  done.  The  Reciprocity  Treaty_was  ab- 
rogated in  order  to  keep  intact  the  system  of 
extortionate  taxation  maintained  by  the  Repub- 
lican party  three  years  after  the  close  of  the 
war ;  to  provide  for  a  standing  army,  a  Freed- 
man's  Bureau,  and  to  perpetuate  their  lease  of 
power  One  more  significant  fact  and  I  have 
done.  From  the  organization  of  thn  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  in  1789,  to  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  civil  war  in  1861,  the  cost  of  the 
public  service  was  $1,781,375,368.  I  say  nothing 
of  the  four  years  of  war,  the  enormous  expendi- 
tures it  entailed,  and  the  tremendous  debt 
which  wasteful  contracts  and  bad  financial 
management  have  bequeathed  to  us.  I  will 
merely  mention  the  fact  that  the  public  ser- 
vice since  the  close  of  the  war  in  1805,  has  cost 
$1,569,236,380,  as  follows : 

TRADE    EXPENDITURES    SINCE   CLOSE   OF   WAR. 

PERIOD.  PEACE  EXPENDITURES. 

1«65,  quarter  ending  June  30th $322,678,245 

Year  ending  June  30   '66  520.950,940 

Year  ending  June  30th, '67    34^,729,129 

Year  ending  June  SOtti, '68  379,178,066 


Total    , $1,509,236,380 

So  that  the  extravagant  expmditures  during 
the  past  three  years  of  peace  nearly  equal  those 
from  the  entire  period  from  1789  to  1861,  which 
embraces  72  years  of  peace  and  war,  including 
the  Revolutionary  war,  that  of  1812,  the  war 
with  the  Barbary  powers,  the  many  Indian 
wars,  and  the  Mexican  war.  And  now,  people 
of  Maine  !  Your  shipbuilding  destroyed,  your 
commerce  annihilated,  and  every  thing  you 
consume  taxed  to  the  hilt,  to  support  a  set  of 
abandoned  and  shameless  politicians  ;  let  me 
tell  you  what  I  regard  as  the  only  remedy  for 
this  state  of  affairs,  a  remedy  that,  if  not  appli- 
ed at  once,  will  lead  you  to  poverty  and  dispair 
— the  victims  of  treachery,  and  the  condemned 
tools  of  villanous  design.  Your  remedy  is  the 
support  of  the  Democracy.  You  should  be  just 
to  others  :  Give  to  other  States  the  benefits  you 
claim.  By  the  boon  which  you  received  from 
the  Union  in  1820,  I  implore  you  to  be  just  to 
your  sistor  States.  Degrade  them  not  by  in- 
sulting conditions  of  Union.  Preserve  for  your- 
selves, if  not  for  them,  the  dignity  of  according 
States.  I  am  a  Republican,  and  I  ask  you  to 


23 


recognize  their  equality.  I  am  a  Democrat,  I 
ask  no  degredation  of  any  State,  community,  or 
race.  I  am  an  American,  I  ask  you  to  enhance 
our  common  glory.  I  am  a  student  of  economy, 
I  ask  you  to  reform  our  ruinous  system.  I 
would  be  a  Christian — I  ask  you  to  receive  from 
the  fallen,  the  fruit  of  repentance,  and  to  aid 
them  in  building  again  their  old  altars  and  re- 
newing again  their  old  good  will — to  add  more 
links  in  the  golden  chain  of  human  love,  whose 
"  upper  end  to  highest  heaven  is  knit."  Be  not 
scared  by  the  ugly  visors  which  Hate  puts  on  to 
frighten  you  from  your  duty.  We  have  had 
enough  of  hate.  Bestir  yourselves  and  the 
nightmare  is  ended.  We  want  no  more  revenges 
and  reprisals.  Let  us  have  the  grace  of  civil 
discipline  and  the  order  established  by  our  fa . 
thers.  "  Then  all  other  things  will  be  added 
unto  you—" 

"  Your  favored  barks  shall  glide 

Safe  o'er  the  surges  of  the  foamy  sea." 

[Mr  Cox  concluded  with  a  review  of  the  poli- 
cies of  the  Republican  Congress  against  "  recon- 
structing "  our  shipping  ;  and  their  conduct  in 
reconstructing  States.  He  went  over  the  negro 
and  carpet-bag  proceedings  at  length ,  and  was 
interrupted  with  applause  throughout.  He 
concluded  thus :] 

The  future  will  be  made  luminous  by  Demo- 
cratic success,  for  it  will  be  our  pride  to  cherish 
all  that  makes  up  the  greatness  and  glory  of  our 
nation  !  (Cheers.)  For  seven  years  the  Demo- 
cracy have  been  down.  Trifles  float,  valuables' 
sink,  in  the  shipwreck  of  the  State.  Bad  weath- 
er shakes  the  good  fruit  and  leaves  the  bad. 
Better  seasons  will  come.  Our  victories  are  al- 
ready proclaimed  from  Connecticut  to  Oregon 
Let  Radicals  rave.  The  boiler  is  safest  when 
blowing  off  steam.  •  We  are  used  to  their  loud 
reproaches.  They  cannot  turn  your  thoughts 
from  your  families  and  your  interests.  Shall 
we  hear  from  you  on  the  second  Tuesday  that 
you  are  redeemed  from  your  prejudices  and 
thraldom,  that  you  have  declared  for  that  peace 
which  is  repose  and  not  terror ;  for  that  order 
which  comes  from  a  willing  and  not  a  desperate 
people.  Can  you  hesitate  ?  Did  Cicero  deliber 
ate  when  Cataline  was  at  the  gates  ?  Did  Mira- 
beau  deliberate  when  the  people  rose  in  their 
might  ?  Your  property,  your  life,  your  business 
"by  which  you  live — all  are  at  stake.  You  can- 
not deliberate,  men  of  Maine.  Will  you  give 
to  radicalism  another  carnival  of  four  years  ? 


It  is  said  of  the  nurse  of  Caligula  that  she 
moistened  her  nipples  with  blood,  to  make  the 
embryo  tyrant  take  a  better  hold.  Do  you 
wish  to  play  the  part  of  nurse  to  the  bloody 
Hates  of  our  time.  Already  a  war  of  sanguin- 
ary proportions  is  being  aroused  between  the 
two  races  South.  Do  you  think  it  should  be 
aggravated  ?  Is  there  no  pride  in  your  blue 
eyes,  light  hair,  white  faces,  and  intelligent 
brains  ?  If  there  be,  let  it  be  aroused  to  save 
your  white  brothers  from  the  impending  strug- 
gle. Let  it  be  aroused  to  rescue  the  blacks 
from  their  impending  fate  ;  the  whites  from  fis- 
cal and  military  tyranny,  and  the  Union  from, 
those  who  have  in  vain  for  years  striven  to 
drive  it  asunder.  The  election  of  Seymour  and 
Blair  will  heal  all  troubles. 

Mr.  Cox  concluded  with  an  eulogy  upon  these 
candidates,  complimenting  General  Chamber- 
lain for  courtesy  and  scholarship.  The  contest, 
he  said,  was  impersonal,  and  in  it  was  bound 
up  the  doctrines  of  the  Saviour---peace,  concord, 
and  union. 

At  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Cox's  remarks,  three 
cheers  were  given  for  Seymour  and  Blair  and 
Mr.  Pillsbury. 


Speech  in  Augusta,  Maine,  Septem- 
ber 9,  1868. 


The  World  report  says :  The  State  capital  is 
not  forgetful  of  the  obligations  of  the  crisis.  Al- 
ready many  good  Democratic  demonstrations  have 
been  held  in  the  city,  but  the  meeting  to-night 
has  surpassed  them  all  in  numbers,  interest,  and 
enthusiasm.  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox  arrived  this  fore- 
noon from  Bangor,  where  he,  last  night,  addressed 
the  citizens  on  the  issues  specially  interesting  to 
their  trade  and  locality,  and  where,  as  in  other 
places,  his  "hard,  practical  facts  "  created  a  pro- 
found impression,  and  effected  no  small  degree  of 
good.  The  fame  of  the  gentleman  preceded  him, 
and  he  was  received  here  with  every  demonstra- 
tion of  welcome  and  warmth. 

Mr.  Cox  spoke  as  follows  : 

GENTLEMEN  AND  LADIES  OF  AUGUSTA:  I 
have  been  in  your  State  for  over  a  week,  and  have 
to  acknowledge,  at  the  capital,  the  courtesies  and 
kindnesses  received  in  every  part  of  it,  from  po- 
litical friends  and  foes.  I  tender  to  you,  here 
and  now,  my  special  acknowledgment  for  this 


24 


grand  reception.  I  attriduted  these  favors  to  the 
fact  that  I  have  not  followed  the  example  set  me 
hy  some  of  the  orators  of  the  opposition.  Cer- 
tainly the  pattern  of  oratory  from  Illinois  (Gen. 
Ingersoll)  is  rather  an  example  to  be  shunned.  I 
have  been  entirely  unpersonal  in  my  speeches,  pre- 
ferring to  present  to  you  facts  connected  with 
your  own  local  interests,  rather  than  to  discuss 
the  more  inflammable  politics  outside  of  economy 
and  commerce.  I  invoked  the  candor  of  my  au- 
diences, while  I  indulged  in  no  abuse  or  invective. 
Strong  expressions,  backed  by  wild  gesture,  might 
do  for  the  revolutionist  and  the  bigot.  It  might 
help  to  stir  men's  passions  in  time  of  martial  con- 
flict. But,  in  a  time  of  peace,  when  the  people 
seek  safety  in  repose  for  their  home-rights  and 
interests,  all  such  irascible  and  noisy  declamation 
is  as  unsuitable  as  the  cries  of  dancing  dervishes 
in  a  New  England  church  (Laughter).  Yet,  not- 
withstanding this  behavior,  notwithstanding  I  have 
gathered  authentic  facts  for  your  consideration, 
about  your  own  matters — "vital  statistics" — the 
leading  Kepublican  journal  of  Portland,  the 
Press,  has  assailed  me  with  bitterness.  It  has 
gone  back  into  the  hot  times  of  war,  and,  culling 
some  bouquets  from  my  speeches  then,  has  en- 
deavored to  excite  prejudices  in  the  New  England 
mind,  so  as  to  render  it  unfit  to  accept  truths 
that  are  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  your 
State  and  its  commerce.  If  these  extracts  were 
not  picked  out  from  their  context,  garbled,  and 
in  one  instance  forged,  and  the  forgery  in  capi- 
tals, I  would  let  them  go  by.  For  instar.CB,  when 
reprobating  the  intolerance  of  New  England 
during  the  war — when,  by  the  conduct  of  the 
dominant  party  here,  the  war  was  prolonged,  and 
when  I  dared  to  confront  her  zealots  as  I  had 
those  of  the  secession  element — I  am  quoted  as 
saying:  "Perish,  New  England,  that  the  Union 
may  live. "  .  When,  after  showing  how  the  West 
was  being  burdened,  and  our  general  carrying 
trade  down  the  Mississippi  was  being  destroyed, 
and  the  taxes  of  war  were  added  to  the  increased 
cost  of  transportation  of  their  produce  to  the 
sea,  I  said : 

"Do  you  wonder  that,  at  meetings  West,  it  is 
resolved  that  the  Mississippi  Valley  shall  be  no 
longer  tributary  to  cupidity  and  folly,  and  that 
men  madly  cry  out:  "Perish,  New  England, 
that  the  Union  may  live." 

To  excuse  this  forgery,  the  Press  says  it  gave 
the  spirit,  though  it  pretended  to  give  the  exact, 
extract.  In  that  very  speech,  "I  denounced  all 
schemes  which  would,  in  any  way,  mutilate  the 


republic,  boldly  denouncing  these  new  and  grow- 
ing dangers."  I  was  then  championing  your 
commerce  bound  up  with  the  West,  for,  did  not 
the  West  then,  as  the  South  once,  bring  its  pro- 
duce to  your  ships  to  be  borne  to  every  clime  ?  It 
will  not  do  to  say,  that,  because  I  have  inveighed 
against  the  infidelity  of  Parker,  the  transcendent- 
alism of  Emerson,  or  the  disunionism  of  Phillips, 
you  will  not  listen  to  me  wrhen  I  tell  you  the  facts- 
and  causes  of  the  decadence  of  your  ship-build- 
ing. Suppose  I  was  harsh  towards  your  dominant 
party,  is  it  a  reason  for  you  to  close  your  ears  to- 
the  cry  of  your  idle  ship-builders  ?  Suppose  I 
did  say  the  Puritans  were  not  Democratic,  but,  by 
connecting  religion  with  politics,  degraded  both, 
which  is,  to  some  extent,  true  yet — yet,  is  it  an 
answer  to  the  fact  that  you  had  217  ships,  barks, 
brigs,  and  schooners  in  1866,  and  only  forty-two 
in  1867,  and  the  same  number  this  year?  Be- 
cause, in  a  jet  of  fun,  based  on  history,  quoting 
the  charter,  I  said  the  Puritans  came  to  this  land 
to  worship  God  and  catch  fish  (Laughter),  is  it  a 
reason  why  this  phrase,  showing  their  early  in- 
clination toward  commercial  adventure,  should  be 
as  wax  in  your  ears — like  that  which  the  old  Ulys- 
ses put  into  his  sailor's,  against  the  syren's  song 
(Laughter)  ?  Because  I  said,  in  1863, 1  denounced 
the  early  errors  and  intolerance  which  drove  Roger 
Williams  into  the  wilderness,  cut  out  Quakers* 
tongues,  burned  witches,  and  punished  by  law  the 
sins  of  which  the  Church  took  cognizance,  and, 
while  discriminating  between  the  noble  men  of 
the  Eevolution  who  were  of  New  England,  and 
the  great  men  like  Webster  and  Douglas  of  the 
latter  day,  does  it  follow  that  you  will  not  ponder 
the  startling  fact  that  our  national  tonnage,  under 
the  rule  of  plunder,  has  fallen  off  since  1860  from 
5,358,000  to  about  3,000,000  (Cheers)?  Oh! 
your  editor  will  not  allow  me  to  tell  what  the  ship- 
builders say — that  their  business  is  growing  into 
one  of  the  "  lost  arts."  I  cannot  picture  to  you 
your  grand  coast  and  harbors  and  forests  and 
water-power,  to  illustrate  the  facilities  you  have 
for  this  art,  and  the  advantages  you  have  for  com- 
merce. If  I  show  you  the  derangement  of  cur- 
rency, the  suicidal  exactions  of  tariff,  the  paraly- 
sis of  production,  the  lessening  of  transportation, 
the  diminution  of  tonnage,  how  all  the  working- 
man  uses  has  been  burdened,  and  how  all  this- 
has  been  caused  by  the  harpies  who  prey  on  us, 
under  pretext  of  reconstruction  and  Bureaus, 
and  to  be  answered  that  it  is  all  false  because  I 
have  spoken  for  religious  toleration,  State  inde- 
pendence, and  national  unity  !  (Cheers.)  When 


25 


I  show  you  in  detail  the  immense  expenses  of  this 
Government  for  three  years  past   under   Radical 
rule  to  be  $1,500,000,000,  nearly  equal  to  all  the 
cost  of  the  Government  from  1789  to  1861,  is  it 
relevant  for  my  critic  to  say :   "  Oh  !  that  young 
man  once  denounced  Cotton  Mather  and  the  early 
spoliations  upon  the  red  men  in  Massachusetts !" 
(Laughter.)     Certainly  the   bold    forgery   of  my 
former  speech  by  this  editor   unfits  him  to  be  my 
censor.     I  dismiss  him  and  his  performance  to  en- 
ter  upon  the  discussion  of  matters  more  import- 
ant.    I  do  not  desire  to   repeat   my  statements  as 
to    your  commerce.     Most   of    them  have   been 
printed.     I  gave  enough  at  Brunswick,  and  added 
to  the  collection   fresh   facts  and  illustrations  at 
Bath.     These  facts  have  grown  as  I  have  trav- 
eled.    Ship-builders  have  come  to  me  with  fresh 
facts,  until  I  am  satisfied  that,  under  the  present 
tariff  on  timber,  iron,    sheathing,  paints,  ropes, 
sail  duck,  salt,  &c.,  which  enter  into  a  ship,  your 
business  is  dead  until  a  party  which  is  in  favor 
of  fair  play,  and   against   class  legislation,  is 
placed  in  power.     It    is   simply  cruel  to  this 
grand   art  of  shipbuilding  to  say,  as  is  said, 
that  we  must  perpetuate  negro  control  in  the 
South  by  heavy  taxes  for  the  army  and  Bureau 
at  the  peril  of  your  content    and    prosperity. 
This,  too,  when  the  commerce  of  the  world  is 
being  liberalized  and  is  growing.    Why  should 
France  and  England  grow  more  than  double  in 
the  past  ten  years  with  their  tonnage  ?     Why 
should  we    fall    off!     Why    should    England, 
which  ten  years  ago  only  carried  one-fifth  of 
our  foreign  imports   and    exports,   now    have 
three-fourths  ?     Is  there  no  remedy  ?     Who  is 
responsible  ?  I  answer:  the  party  who  has  power 
to  vote  down  vetoes,  which  has  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  the  Federal   Legislature  !     The  party 
which  in  this  year  of  peace  has  its  army  and 
its  navy  at  an  expense  double  that  of  the  Gov- 
ernment under  Democratic  rule  in  1860  ! — its 
army  to  protect  its  prescriptive   and  suicidal 
policy  in  the  South  ;  and  its  navy  to  protect  a 
commerce  that  is  almost  gone  from  the  sea.     I 
know,  gentlemen,  these   are  pocket  arguments. 
But  what  is  the  use  of  government  if  it  steals 
from  your  pocket,  in  taxes,  unequal  and  burden- 
some,  without  the  compensation  of  protection 
to  your  families,  your    happiness,    and    your 
daily  avocations  ?    Surely,  I  might  address  the 
Radical  Congress  in  this  connection  as  Timoleon 
did  the  citizens  of  Syracuse  : 
"  You  have  not,  as  good  Patriots  should  do,  studied 
The  public  good,  but  your  particular  ends ; 


Factious  among  yourselves,  preferring  such 

To  offices  and  honors,  as  ne'er  read 

The  elements  of  saving  policy  ; 

But  deeply  skilled  in  all  the  principles 

That  usher  to  destruction  !"  [Cheers  .J 

I  might  give  you  a  higher  tone  of  argumen- 
tation, appealing  to  your  sense  of  patriotism  and 
your  love  of  your  own   race.     There  is  no  ap- 
peal in  this  contest  which  a  Christian   people 
should  echo  with  more  delight  than  that  which 
dwells  upon  the    peace  and  good  will   which 
the  Saviour  taught,  and  for  the  illustration  of 
which  God  has  given  us  such  splendid  oppor- 
tunities.   Read  the  calm  sentiments  of  General 
Lee's  letter  to  General  Rosecrans.     Who,  with 
a  heart  that  is  not  black  with  spite  and  greedy 
for  spoil,   cannot   pity   the   devastation  which 
our  great  strife  has  caused  and  which  yet  re- 
mains in   the   South?     Destroyed    homesteads 
and  desolated  fields — once  scenes  of  cultivated 
refinement — have  they    no   voice  ?     Shall   not 
these  traces  of  ruin  be  obliterated  ?     Shall  not 
the  fields  be  again   white    with    cotton,   and 
golden  with  grain  ?     When  they   are,  your  in- 
terests will  be  aggrandized — for  we  are  all  mem- 
bers of  one  body.     We  are  bound  up  in  one- 
destiny.     Radicalism  may  weaken,  but-  cannot 
break    the    chain    between   North  and  South. 
The  election    of    Seymour — the    accomplished 
statesman — and  Blair — the  indomitable  soldier 
— will  be  the  first  page  of  new  and  better   his- 
tory.    The  day  will  then  begin  its  dawn.    They 
hold  what  Ward  Beecher  once  so  pithily  said  r 
"  Our  theory  of  Government  has  no  place  for 
a  State  except  in  the  Union. ';     If  to  hold  this 
be  revolution,  then  are  the  Supreme  Court  and 
the  Democratic  party  in  the   category  of  revo- 
lutionists.    The  Court  was  ready  to  so  decide. 
The   Radicals  have,  by   various  acts,  formally 
recognized  it.   They  have,  bv  their  recent  legis- 
lation and  conduct,  endeavored,  for  party  ends,, 
to  bring  States  in  which  were  never  out,  and 
by  so  doing  they  have  destroyed  the  relations- 
of  equality  of  the  States  by  interfering  with 
all  local  concerns — including    suffrage.     They 
hurled  the  military  power  to  the  aid  of  negro- 
supremacy    South.     They  have  thus   violated 
the  very  form  and  genius   of  our  federal   sys- 
tem.    All   the  powers  of  the  United   States  are 
held  in  trust  from  the  States.     They  are  limit- 
ed and  specific.      They  have  never  lost  their 
vigor  by  war  ;  and,  on  the  repression  of  rebel- 
lion, these  powers  are  resumable    as  if  never 
disturbed.     The  only  penalty  which  civil  war 


26 


should  entail,  one  that  is  fearful  enough,  is 
that  which  afflicts  communities.  It  is  defeat, 
and  its  losses  and  horrors.  It  is  the  interest  of 
all  that  when  the  rebellion  is  crushed,  that  the 
rebels  be  rescued,  and  that  all  move  in  content 
under  the  protection  of  the  Government  as  be- 
fore, and  in  the  track  marked  out  for  its 
movement.  The  whole  Radical  policy  is  out- 
side of  that  track.  It  is,  therefore,  revolution- 
ary. The  Democratic  policy  is  that  within  the 
track.  The  machine  must  keep  upon  it,  or  else,  de- 
struction. The  war  was  waged  under  and  for  the 
Constitution.  Its  results  must  be  garnered  up 
under  its  aegis.  Any  other  results,  such  as  we 
now  have  in  the  South,  tend  to  change  our  fun- 
damental conditions  of  Union,  and  will  not  be 
permanent.  The  strain  to  keep  such  perma- 
nency is  convulsive  and  seditious.  We  shall 
then  have  only  a  republic  in  name  We  have 
worse  than  a  consolidated  despotism — "  buoyed 
only  by  its  rottenness  and  efficient  only  by  the 
«word."  (Cheers.)  Need  I  prove  these  results  by 
reference  to  specific  acts  of  Radical  policy  ? 
Read  the  three  acts  of  reconstruction.  Thny  as- 
sume that  Congress  may  unmake  States  and 
give  all  laws  for  their  guidance  while  in  their 
non-age.  The  last  supplement,  passed  March  2, 
1867,  declares  "  that  the  existing  governments 
in  the  ten  rebel  States  were  not  legal  State 
governments ;"  and  then  proceeds  to  expound 
the  former  acts  of  reconstruction  by  turning 
over  all  concerns  to  the  military — "  subject  to 
the  paramount  authority  of  Congress."  But  if 
Congress  can  by  statute,  prescribe,  alter,  add  to 
or  diminish  the  conditions  of  Union — then  Con- 
gress is  indeed  supreme  and  the  Constitution  a 
rope  of  sand.  It  is  a  new  system— the  omnipo- 
tence of  the  British  Parliament,  without  even 
its  popular  checks.  The  duties  of  the  Judicial, 
Executive  and  Legislative  deportments  do  not 
lead  them  to  determine  the  relations  of  States. 
Only  the  States  can  do  this,  under  the  provis- 
ions of  the  Constitution  for  its  own  amendment. 
But  Congress,  compounding  all  power  into  it- 
self, and  using  the  army  with  its  iron  grip, 
gives  military  government  to  ten  States.  It  is 
not  given  merely  as  a  posse  to  keep  the  peace  at 
the  call  of  the  civil  power  ;  not  merely  to  write 
•with  a  pen  of  fraud  and  force  the  registration  of 
voters  for  black  supremacy  ;  not  merely  for  the 
punishment  of  criminals  ;  but  to  override  all 


existing  civil    governments.     Twelve   millions 


I  of  people,  with  a  view  to  negro  subjection  in  a 
!  territory  where  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
|  States  is  supposed  to  reign,  are  at  one  dash  of 
this  monstrous  ukase  of  Congress,  stripped  of  all 
their  guarantee?.  The  very  liberties  of  hundreds 
of  years  are  at  one  fell  swoop  destroyed  ;  and  we 
are  congratulated — amidst  all  discontent,  an- 
archy, savage  associations,  bloodshed  and  perils 
in  the  South  to-day — congratulated  on  the  suc- 
cess of  reconstruction!  Go  to  Tennessee,  South 
Carolina,  Louisiana  !  There  read  the  irony  and 
taunt  conveyed  in  such  congratulations. 

Mr.  Cox  then  discussed  in  detail  the  results  to 
Southern  industry  and  on  Northern  capital  of 
thfse  destructive  acts.  He  said  :  The  Southern 
land  pin^s  for  the  peace  which  will  encourage 
industry  and  induce  content.  It  longs  for  the 
tranquility  which  will  grow  corn  and  cotton, 
sugar  and  rice.  It  wants  no  more  revenges  in 
the  shape  of  black  ballots  or  fixed  bayonets.  It 
wants  the  States  restored  to  their  practical  re- 
lations, and  their  revolutions  performed  in  the 
spheres  of  equality,  and  not  with  destructive 
ruin  and  confusion  in  jarring  and  eccentric 
orbits.  This  can  only  be  done  under  conditions 
similar  to  those  of  the  Christian  system— the 
law  of  love  as  the  rule  of  peace ;  kindness  and 
forgiveness  allied  with  intelligence  and  patriot- 
ism! 

When  war  was  flagrant,  we  had  a  .policy  of 
war.  Governor  Seymour,  while  Governor  of 
New  York,  aided  to  carry  it  through.  He  said 
in  a  message  that  he  illustrated  by  his  act: 

We  must  accept  the  condition  of  affairs  as  they 
stand.  At  this  moment  the  fortunes  of  our  country 
are  influenced  by  the  result  of  battles.  Our  armies 
in  the  field  must  be  supported— all  Constitutional 
demands  of  our  General  Government  must  be 
promptly  responded  to.  Under  no  ciruumsttnces  can 
a  division  of  the  Union  be  conceded! 

Now,  when  peace  has  come,  he  has  the  policy 
of  peace.  Let  us  be  wise  to  accept  him  with  his 
policy.  Courteous,  modest,  scholarly,  without 
stain  upon  his  private  life,  and  without  taint 
in  his  public  record,  he  will,  better  than  any 
one  within  the  confines  of  the  republic,  admin- 
ister its  affairs  with  an  eye  single  to  all  its  in- 
terests, and  with  the  sentiment  of  a  patriot 
who  recognizes  no  flag  which  has  not  all  our 
stars  upon  its  field !  (Cheers.; 

Mr.  Cox  resumed  his  seat  amid  prolonged  ap- 
plause. 


27 


Speech   of  S.  S.  Cox   at   Portland, 
Me.,  011  September  11. 


One  of  the  largest  political  meetings  ever  held 
in  this  State  has  just  been  "brought  to  a  close, 
the  announcement  that  the  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox,  of 
New  York,  would  address  the  citizens  of  Port- 
land this  evening,  was  sufficient  to  draw  out  a 
crowd  of  nearly  ten  thousand  persons,  including 
the  wealth  and  respectability  of  the  city.  The 
demonstration  was  held  at  the  largest  hall  in 
the  city,  which  building  remained  filled  to  re- 
pletion to  the  close,  notwithstanding  the  hot  and 
sultry  weather.  The  galleries  were  filled  with 
ladies,  a  fine  band  of  music  was  in  attendance 
and  the  gr«itest  enthusiasm  prevailed  through- 
out the  evening.  After  Mr.  Cox  had  returned 
to  his  hotel  for  the  night,  he  was  again  called 
out  by  a  large  band  of  serenaders.  to  whose  mu- 
sic and  lusty  cheers  he  briefly  responded. 

The  meeting  was  presided  over  by  Hon.  C.  P. 
Zimball,  supported  by  a  long  list  of  vise-presi- 
dents and  secretaries.  Mr.  Cox  dwelt  mainly  on 
issues  concerning  the  whole  country,  but  ex- 
horted the  Democratic  voters  of  Maine  not  to 
forget  the  struggle  in  their  own  State  on  Mon- 
day next.  The  speaker  was  introduced  by  Mr. 
Kimball,  and  was  received  with  loud  and  pro- 
longed cheering. 

SPEECH    OF   MR     COX. 

CITIZENS  OF  MAINE  :  I  have  spoken  most 
particularly  in  other  parts  of  the  facts  and 
causes  connected  with  the  decadence  of  our  mar- 
itime interests.  I  have  shown  how  taxes  and 
tariffs — unfriendly  legislation— have  stabbed 
and  poisoned  your  commerce.  The  facts  are  so 
numerous,  and  the  causes  so  potential,  that  no 
one  speech  could  comprehend  the  enormity  of 
the  blunders  and  crimes  for  which  you  will  hold 
Radicalism  responsible.  (Cheers.)  Without 
preface  as  to  other  matters,  I  ask  you  to  listen 
to  mere  facts  and  further  deductions  Grind 
them  into  your  natures ;  while  forgetting  the 
errors  of  all  parties  past,  ask  what  is  your  re- 
lief in  the  present.  I  shall  demonstrate  again, 
by  new  and  collateral  arguments,  that  the  dom- 
inant party,  whether  wittingly  or  not,  are  the 
foes  to  your  prosperity. 

COMMERCE,    THE  GREAT   INTEREST. 

There  is  a  comparative  anatomy  of  nations, 
•  whose  distinctive  features  can  thus  be  traced. 


It  is  certain  that  the  prominent  feature  of  this 
State  and  of  this  nation  is,  or  was,  before  bad 
counsels  ruled,  our  marine.  The  breezes  are 
ours.  The  waters  are  ours.  The  woods  are 
ours.  In  better  days  the  sail  of  traffic  glided  in 
and  out  of  our  harbors  "  with  ceaseless  inter- 
change." It  was  our  profit  at  home  ;  our  pride 
ab*road  !  But  now,  alas !  we  have  all  these 
prodigalities  of  nature  and  have  no  use  of  them. 
The  English  Punch  used  to  represent  a  Yankee 
as  larger  than  his  garments.  The  picture  is  not 
now  true.  Thu  Yankee  is  dwarfed,  and  the 
clothes  are  unfit. 

OUR   GROWTH    THROUGH    COMMERCE. 

True,  as  a  nation  we  have  2,936,166  square 
miles  of  immovable  land.  Its  variety  of  climate 
and  culture  has  been  the  theme  of  economists. 
But  every  one  of  these  1,879,146,040  acres,  of 
which  Maine  has  over  20,000,000,  have  been,  or 
will  be  cultivated,  by  those  who  either  by  them- 
selves or  their  progenitors,  crossed  the  sea. 
Gradually  since  1790  this  nation  has  increased 
decennially  over  one-third  of  100  per  cent. 
We  number  nearly  4J,000,000  of  people.  This 
is  the  result  of  that  commerce  which  came  to 
us  freighted  with  the  bodies  and  the  hopes  of 
the  human  kind.  In  fifty  years  alone  we  have 
had  from  other  shores — and  many  of  them  are 
before  me—some  7,000,000  of  peoplev  We  have 
outrun  all  other  nations.  Whereas,  the  fore- 
most of  other  nations  has  increased  121  per 
cent,  in  60  years,  we  have  increased  593  per 
cent. !  Why  has  commerce  been  checked  ? 
Commerce  made  this  nation.  Burdens,  war, 
duties,  taxations,  poor-rates,  and  other  impedi- 
ments to  freedom  and  content  have  become  our 
legacy  under  Radical  rule.  They  hinder  our 
advancement  now,  by  the  same  law  of  repulsion 
which  once  drove  millions  to  this  once  untaxed 
and  free  land.  They  choke  production.  They 
destroy  skill.  In  the  ten  years  before  the  war, 
under  Democratic  auspices,  we  doubled  our 
values.  Our  population  increased  135  percent, 
and  our  wealth  130  per  cent.  Why  ?  Was  not 
distance  annihilated  by  steam,  between  inland 
and  seaboard  ?  Were  not  the  very  tides  carried 
to  the  farms  ?  What  a  splended  growth  was 
that  of  our  own  commerce  from  1820  to  1860  I 
Rising,  under  the  magic  of  your  industry  and 
genius,from  2,180,764  tons  in  1840,to  3,535,454  in 
1850,  and  5,358,808  in  1860  !  You  who  lay  and 
caulk  the  keel,  rig  the  sail,  mould  the  anchor, 
twist  the  cordage,  and  frame  the  engine,  cannot 


28 


"be  too  proud  of  your  former  achievements.  You 
are  proud,  however,  as  the  present  Greek  is  of 
the  ruined  Acropolis,  or  the  Roman  of  the 
dilapidated  Pantheon.  Your  Neptune  is  de- 
throned; his  trident  broken;  his  image  pul- 
verized. Our  thirty  thousand  vessels  of  1860 — 
where  are  they  ?  The  vessels  die  on  an  average 
in  eight  years  !  Where  is  their  substitute  ? 
Ask  your  echoless  ship-yards  and  your  deserted 
harbors  !  The  product  of  our  mines,  agriculture 
and  manufacture,  tell  the  tale  of  dislocated 
labor  and  paralyzed  commerce.  Since  1865, 
even  since  peace  was  made,  you  have  still  de- 
cayed. 

DECADENCE   OF  COMMERCE. 

Why  is  it  that  your  keels  and  flag  float  no 
longer  in  foreign  seas  ?  Why  do  you  lament  for 
the  olden  days,  when  you  labored  so  proudly  and 
profitably  ?  Ah  !  we  have  had  too  little  keel  and 
too  much  sail  on  our  Ship  of  State.  The  canvas 
has  been  swelled  until  we  have  careened  her.  The 
political  pirates  have  rifled  the  cargo  and  scuttled 
the  ship.  Political  tempests  have  dissipated  our 
commerce.  You  have  a  dead  calm  in  your  avoca- 
tions. Our  commerce  has  visibly  declined  since  1860. 
I  could  name  you  the  nations,  from  China  to  Peru, 
and  from  the  Levant  to  the  Baltic,  in  opposing 
illustration.  Even  since  the  war  has  ended,  it  has 
not  grown.  It  is  a  theme  for  sadness.  Lament 
for  it,  ye  men  of  Maine.  Lament  as  a  "  virgin 
clothed  in  sackcloth  for  the  husband  of  her  youth." 
In  vain  is  your  lament,  unless  you  hurl  the  spoilers 
from  power.  (Cheers.)  Our  exports  go  abroad 
in  foreign  bottoms.  A  pilot  told  me  there  was  in. 
New  York  harbor  last  month  but  one  foreign  ves-» 
sel  with  our  flag.  Radical  legislation,  as  I  shall 
show  you,  joined  with  the  pirates  of  the  civil -war 
to  make  shipping  and  commerce  ruinous.  Read 
Donald  McKay's  letter !  He  says  the  last  Con- 
gress "  refused  the  bill  for  the  relief  of  the  ship- 
building interest  by  a  drawback  on  dutiable  arti- 
cles entering  into  the  construction  of  new  ships. 
The  hope  of  renewing  our  commercial  marine  and 
bringing  it  up  to  its  former  standard  is  abandon- 
ed." Congress  had  time  to  extend  Freedmen's 
Bureaus  and  spend  moneys  in  arming  blacks ;  but 
it  had  no  time  for  your  interest.  (Cheers.)  Read 
Wm.  H.  Webb's  reasons  why  he  closed  his  ship- 
yard. He  could  not  work  under  our  infamous 
tariff.  All  that  is  left  is  our  coasting  trade,  and 
that  is  only  saved  by  a  law  which  forbids  foreign 
bottoms  to  engage  in  it.  (A  voice,  "That's 
true.")  The  two  and  a  half  millions  of  cotton  bales 


this  year,  or  as  much  of  it  as  will  go  abroad,  will 
go  under  the  British  Union  Jack.  On  a  statement 
made  in  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  I  affirm  that 
' '  since  the  25th  of  May,  when  the  ship  Universe 
cleared  for  Liverpool  with  ninety- six  bales  of  cot- 
ton, not  a  bale  of  cotton  has  left  this  port  in  an 
American  vessel.  English  and  European  steamers 
have  taken  all,  except  one  hundred  bales  in  a 
Bremen  ship  for  Bremen.  A  new  line  of  steamers 
will  run  soon  from  Savannah  to  Liverpool  once  a 
fortnight.  The  carrying  trade  must  soon  be  done 
entirely  by  steam.  Is  the  whole  of  this  valuable 
trade  to  be  thrown  into  the  hands  of  foreigners?" 
If  so,  have  we  not  blockaded  our  own  ports  ?  We 
are  shamed  before  the  world !  Our  old  rival, 
England,  whom  we  were  just  surpassing  in  a  com- 
mercial marine,  now. eclipses  us  o%  every  sea. 
She  is  binding  continents  together  by  the  rail, 
and  reaching  out  her  hands  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
by  her  commerce.  She  is  combining  in  herself 
the  maritime  heroism  of  Denmark,  Holland, 
Venice,  the  Hanseatic  League,  Old  Spain  with 
her  galleons  freighted  with  silver,  and  Young 
America  Avith  her  clippers  which  outran  the  wind  I 
For  trade,  England  sends  her  Franklins  and  Parrys 
to  the  pole,  her  Livingstones  to  Africa,  and  her 
Napiers  into  Abyssinia.  Wherever  the  stars  shine 
on  the  ocean,  her  flag  floats  and  her  compass  di- 
rects. Even  Brazil,  cut  in  twain  by  the  mighty 
Amazon,  has  thrown  her  vast  territory  open  to 
free  commerce.  She  shames  us.  To  us  Heaven 
has  been  lavish  with  her  gifts.  We,  of  all  nations, 
have  the  most  ample  facilities  for  commerce. 
Atlantic,  Pacific,  Gulf,  lake,  river  shore,  to  head 
of  tide-water  and  island  coasts,  give  us  36,689 
miles — nearly  twice  around  the  globe !  Add  river 
and  canal,  and  our  water  carriage  is  as  much  again. 
We  have  more,  harbors  to  the  mile,  broader  and 
deeper,  than  any  other  country.  With  our  mag- 
nificent sea  coast,  our  forests  of  pine  North  and 
live-oak  South,  it  is  thus  we  return  the  benefits  of 
Heaven.  The  very  ocean,  it  would  seem,  which 
leaps  to  our  shores — our  Mississippis,  our  lakes, 
our  Hudsons,  our  Penobscotts — are  blunders  of 
the  Almighty,  at  least  in  Radical  theory  and  prac- 
tice. Are  not  our  rulers  wiser  than  Him  who 
ruleth  the  raging  of  the  seas  ?  Cannot  they  re- 
peal His  decrees,  issued  in  wind  and  wave,  on 
river,  sea,  and  lake  ?  Do  they  not  nullify  the 
very  order  of  Providence  as  they  have  our  written 
Constitution?  (Cheers.)  It  was'  against  these 
outrages  upon  nature,  commerce,  and  the  colonies 
that  our  fathers  rebelled.  It  was  declared  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  "  The  history  of  the 


29 


present  King  of  Great  Britain  is  a  history  of  re 
peated  injuries  and  usurpations,  all  having  in  di 
rect  objects  the  establishment  of  an  absolute 
tyranny  over  these  States  ;"  and  one  of  the  facts 
submitted  to  a  candid  world  is  the  act  of  British 
statesmanship,  in  "  cutting  off  our  trade  with  al 
parts  of  the  world."  (Cheers.) 

CAUSES  OF  COMMEECIAL  RUIN. 

Need  I  point  to  you  the  reasons  why  our  com- 
merce and  our  country  has  been  nearly  ruined  since 
1860  ?  The  party  in  power  have  demoralized  our 
currency,  until  it  is  as  debauched  as  it  is  redundant. 
It  affects  commerce  disastrously.  They  have  de 
stroyed  commerce  by  destroying  the  productive  in- 
dustry on  which  it  depends.  They  have  destroyed 
it  by  inordinate  taxation  and  a  carnival  waste  of 
money.  They  have,  by  specific,  pernicious  tariff 
legislation,  destroyed  our  power  to  build  ships. 

THE  CURRENCY  AND  COMMERCE. 

Democracy  gave  us,  as  a  Federal  currency, 
gold  and  silver.  Jt  was  the  legal  tender  of  the 
Constitution.  It  was  the  lubricating  oil  of  com- 
merce. It  was  the  medium  of  exchanges,  the 
vehicle  of  trade,  the  standard  of  wages  and 
prices.  It  was  stable.  It  had  no  fluctuations. 
A  dollar  of  our  mint  was  twenty-four  and  three- 
quarter  grains  of  gold.  It  was  the  legal  tender 
of  the  world.  It  was  the  currency  of  the  ships. 
(Cheers.)  I  am.  not  now  making  an.  argument 
for  the  hurried  resumption  of  specie  payments; 
I  am  only  indicting  the  party  who  gave  us  this 
irredeemable  bastard  nuisance  as  currency.  I 
voted  against  making  greenbacks  at  all ;  and 
against  their  being  a  legal  tender.  It  was  a 
scheme  to  enable  the  debtor  to  cheat  his  credi- 
tor. It  was  the  old  kingcraft  to  sweat  the  coin. 
It  was  a  puny  attempt  to  repeal  the  Almighty's 
decree,  that  gold  and  silver — sunk  by  him  in 
the  earth,  to  be  delved  after  as  precious — should 
be  the  universal  standard  of  value.  (Cheers.) 
Yet  gold  is  the  superior  of  paper  after  all.  Gold 
still  wears  the  purple.  It  is  the  standard  of 
value  even  for  paper.  Congress  may  make  it 
the  standard  of  prices,  but  by  doing  so  defrauds 
labor  and  cheats  the  people.  Prices  rise  as  the 
currency  falls.  Money  is  plenty.  Debts  are 
paid.  Oh !  how  facile  to  pay  them — even  na- 
tional debts — by  paper.  Commerce  may  not  at 
once  fail  under  such  a  scheme.  Bladders  are 
hard  to  drown.  (Laughter.)  Galvanized  into 
unhealthy  activity  by  an  unnatural  stimulus, 
speculation  is  rife,  and  the  body,  politic  and 


social,  is  bloated.   Men  may  call  it  health.     It  is 
the  deceitful  animation  which  precedes  collapse. 
When   the  Continental   paper  was  worth   five 
hundred  to  one,  business  was  lively.     In  1795 
jobbing  was  animated  in   France,  for  were  not 
the  assignats  the  very  hashesh  of  intoxication 
in  trade  ?     But  ah  !  the  cruel  revulsion  !     Des- 
peration is  the  mother  of  such  schemes,  and  the 
prosperity  it  brings  is  as  temporary  as  it  is  illu- 
sive.   We  are  already  realizing  its  baleful  fruits. 
It  appears  by  an  article  in  the  London  Times  that 
the  banks  of  France  and  England  are  gorged  with 
gold,  and  one  reason  for  it  is  given,  to-wit :  that 
the  paper  system  of  the  United  States  is  a  bar 
to  commerce !     Moreover,  I  affirm  on  good  au- 
thority, that  by  reason  of  our  paper  and  tax 
systems,  the  gold  of  the  Pacific  is  shorn  of  one- 
third  of  its  value  for  uses  outside  of  the  United 
States.     To  trade  abroad  you  must  have  a  meas- 
ure equal  to  that  of  other  nations.     When  you 
sell  a  bushel  of  potatoes,  do  you  not  have  a  stan- 
dard bushel  ?     When  you  measure  a  vessel  do 
you  use  an  india  rubber  strap  ?     You   prefer  a 
foot  rule.     (A  voice — " sure  thing"}     The  Bible 
has  Democratic  politics  in  it  all  through.     But 
where  is  there  so  sound  a   doctrine  as  that  in 
Amos,  when  he  reproaches  those  who   "  make 
the  ephah  small   and   shekel  great  and  falsify 
the  balances  by  deceit  ?"     (Applause.)     When 
you  have  a  variable  dollar  are  not  all  your  oth- 
er measures   at   fault?      If  you  redeem  your 
paper  with  a  dollar  of  specie,  very  well.     But 
you  must  have  a  steady  gauge,  else  you  labor  in 
vain  and  in  the  dark      In  this  time,  when  the 
newly  found  gold  fields  are  furnishing  the  world 
bases  of  exchange,  is  it  not  monstrous  to  substi- 
;ute  for  these  world-wide  energies  of  trade,  a 
paper  system  which  is  a  continual  tax  on  labor 
and  a  coutinual  hindrance  to  commerce  ?      Go 
,o  Switzerland  !      It   was  never   cursed   with 
paper.     Go  to   California,  prodigal   with  gold 
nd  a  gold  policy !      See  the  good  effects  of  a 
standard.     In  the  interests  of  the  consumers,  I 
charge  the  lowering  of  this  standard  as  a  stu- 
pendous fraud.     (Cheers.)     "  Oh  !  we  could  not 
make  war  for  the  Union,  without  running  a 
greenback    printing-press    in   the    Treasury." 
You  couldn't  ?     Did  not  Napoleon  fight  all  his 
wars  with  gold  and  without  assignats  ?     Your 
party  gave  the  poor  man  this  false  money  ;  yet 
you  try  to  prove  that  his  wages  rise,  when  all 
that  he  buys  rises  in  higher  ratio.      (Cheers.) 
Are  your  sympathies  with  labor  or  its  spoilers  ? 
Could  you  not  have  withdrawn  enough  of  your 


30 


paper  to  make  it  on  a  par  with  gold  ?  Had  you 
the  courage  of  truth  ?  Is  not  the  equilibrium 
of  value,  therefore,  as  uncertain  to-day  as  it  was 
in  1864  ?  Is  not  this  the  one  great  cause  why 
the  sails  of  commerce  are  clipped,  and  your 
ship-yards  are  the  haunts  of  bats  at  night  and 
idlers  by  day?  (Applause.)  The  Democracy 
frown  upon  the  curse  of  paper  money.  If  in 
power  they  would  redeem  it,  as  they  would  the 
nation.  (Cheers  )  In  the  days  of  Jackson,  they 
"bore  high  the  golden  standard  as  Governor 
Seymour  has  since  in  New  York  !  (Cheers  for 
Seymour.)  The  Democracy  alone  can  revive 
commerce  and  rescue  labor  from  the  excesses  of 
jobbers  and  the  frauds  of  paper  money.  We  are 
bound  to  do  it  by  party  traditions  and  princi- 
ples. We  desire  no  partiality.  Our  platform 
does  not  require  you  to  pay  in  the  tariff  dues 
gold  for  the  interest  on  the  bonds,  and  then 
have  you  receive  your  wages  in  a  currency  30 
per  cent,  less  valuable.  It  does  not  say  that  the 
bondholder  shall  have  his  principal  and  inter- 
est in  gold,  and  you  should  have  your  wages 
and  the  pensioner  his  pittance  in  paper.  It 
says  one  currency  for  all — (cheers) — lawful 
money  for  bondholder  as  well  as  ship-builder 
— (cheers) — one  currency  for  all,  and  that  the 
best !  (Cheers.)  I  charged  the  Radical  party 
with  being  the  foe  to  commerce.  'This  I  shall 
prove : 

TONNAGE   NOT   RECONSTRUCTED. 

ID  one  tempest  of  Radical  wrath  during  the 
war,  a  law  was  passed  cutting  off  from  registry 
a  large  tonnage  from  our  marine ;  perhaps 
two-fifths  of  it.  Why  ?  This  was  a  part  of  the 
gospel  of  hate — the  reprisal  of  war !  These 
vessels  were  driven  by  Radical  rule  out  of  our 
marine,  because  we  failed  to  protect  then!  under 
our  flag.  The  rebels  did  their  part  to  destroy 
our  marine.  For  them  I  am  no  apologist.  In 
my  place  in  Congress,  as  a  friend  of  free  com- 
merce, I  denounced  those  who  preyed  on  inno- 
cent trade  I  said  in  December,  1861,  what  I 
believe  now  — '-That  England,  by  harboring 
privateers,  became  an  accessory  ;  that  the  over- 
hauling of  the  Harvey  Birch,  almost  in  sight 
of  the  English  shores,  after  dragging  down  her 
Stars  and  Stripes,  and  raising  instead  a  ban- 
ner of  triple  striped  infamy,  after  ironing  her 
crew,  and  with  the  red  hand  of  a  buccaneer 
burning  her  to  the  water's  edge,  and  then 
giving  the  Nashville  an  asylum  in  Southamp- 
ton, was  treachery  to  neutrality  and  equiva- 


valent  io  piracy."  (Cheers.)  The  New  York 
Tribune  attributes  the  destruction  of  our  ma- 
rine to  such  conduct.  These  outrages  were 
limited  and  temporary  checks.  Why  did  not 
our  Radical  Congress  reconstruct  our  lost 
ships  ?  (Applause.)  They  tried  it  on  lost 
States.  They  destroyed  both.  (Cheers.)  From 
1860  to  1868  Great  Britain  rose  from  four  to 
nine  million  tons.  France  from  one  to  three. 
We  fell  off,  meanwhile,  nearly  one-half  our 
tonnage.  We  have  less  now  than  in  1848 ! 

THE  CAUSES  OF  OUR  DECAY. 

Our  expenses  this  year  of  peace  are  $400,- 
000,000— of  which  $130,000,000  is  gold  inte- 
rest, and  $130,000,000  more  to  keep  a  standing 
army  and  negro  charities  South.  $260,000,000  ! 
It  is  as  large  as  our  wheat  crop.  It  is  equal 
to  our  ships — all.  It  is  several  Pacific  Rail- 
roads !  Of  this  $400,000,000,  more  than  half  is 
customs — gold.  It  is  taken  from  the  people  to 
support  a  Government  that  the  year  before  the 
war  cost  only  $41,000,000— (cheers)— one  tenth  ! 
Think  how  our  trade  has  departed.  Eighteen 
years  ago  only  one-fifth  of  our  imports  was 
carried  in  foreign  bottoms.  In  1867,  when  our 
imports  had  increased,  three-fourths  were  so 
carried.  So  in  proportion  with  our  export 
trade.  Our  domestic  exports  had  decreased 
from  1860— when  they  were  $373,000,000,  gold 
to  $334,000,000  in  1868— a  decline  of  ten  per, 
cent. ;  while  those  of  Great  Britain  increased 
during  the  same  period  thirty  per  cent.,  and 
France  forty-three  per  cent.  Our  trade  with 
Canada  —  mostly  grain  trade  —  has  decreased 
since  1866  $22,000,000.  The  pause  is  taxation, 
unequal  and  galling.  Why,  all  our  expendi- 
tures, from  1789  to  1861,  were  only  $1,781,- 
375,368.  In  three  years  since  the  war — from 
July,  1855,  to  June  30,  1868  —  they  were 
$1,569,236,380.  This  is  peace!  "Let  us  have 
peace!*'  (Laughter.)  Seventy-two  years  of 
Democracy — peace  and  wars — are  not  much 
beyond  three  years  of  Radical  peace.  (Cheers.) 

TARIFFS    GENERALLY    FOES    TO   COMMERCE. 

No  one  will  deny  that  a  tariff  specifically 
burdensome  to  the  ship  owner  prevents  the 
building  of  ships.  I  now  proceed  to  prove  gen- 
erally that  tariffs  which  are  "  protective"  and 
prohibitory,  and  not  on  a  basis  of  revenue,  are 
foes  to  commerce.  The  gross  product  of  the  United 
States  in  1860  showed  some  seven  thousand  mil- 
lions for  the  year.  The  major  part  of  this  was 


31 


derived  from  commerce ;  and  that,  too,  when 
commerce  alone  was  the  source  of  our  revenue 
by  customs.  One  half  of  the  interests  of  this 
country  is  commercial,  one-fourth  agricultural, 
and  one-eighth  manufacturing.  By  lineage,  by 
the  character  of  our  people,  by  the  variety  of 
our  soil  and  seas,  there  is  no  limit  to  our  com- 
mercial enterprise.  When  you  impair  it,  you 
impair  your  productive  power  and  your  tax- 
able ability.  Lot  me  illustrate.  In  the  West 
they  raise  more  corn  than  they  need.  They 
have  a  right  to  sell  the  surplus  anywhere.  If, 
with  this  surplus,  they  buy  tea,  coffee,  and 
sugars,  it  encourages  transportation ;  first  to 
the  seaboard  and  then  on  the  main  If  you 
can  get  for  your  one  day's  labor  what  is  equiv- 
alent to  two  days'  labor  abroad,  that  is  best 
(Cheers.)  But  h  re  comes  the  Radical,  and 
says ;  "  No  ;  first  help  the  State ;  then  help  a 
class ;  then,  if  there  is  any  profit  or  loss, 
pocket  it !"  (Cheers.)  He  forces  you  to  buy 
dear  goods,  under  pretence  of  supporting  the 
Government.  Let  us  see  how  the  present  tariff 
works.  Last  year  there  was  $176,000,000  gold 
collected  by  customs.  Its  average  levy  was  45 
per  cent  in  gold.  To  that  add  the  gold  pre- 
mium ;  there  have  been  collected  in  customs 
since  1863  five  hundred  millions.  Add  the  cost 
of  the  gold,  the  importers'  profit,  and  that  of 
the  wholesaler  and  the  retailer,  and  you  will 
approximate  to  the  fact  that  you  are  paying  for 
a  few  people  some  65  per  cent,  on  the  average, 
if  not  more,  a  great  part  of  which  never  goes 
into  the  Treasury.  To  illustrate  :  Mr.  Walker, 
a  New  England  economist,  has  taken  up  sugar, 
and  has  shown  that,  on  the  basis  of  the  1858 
importation,  the  consumers  lost  on  nearly  fifty 
millions  of  sugar  consumed,  one-fifth !  It  is 
the  same  with  other  articles.  A  tariff  on  im- 
ports diminishes  foreign  commerce.  The  high 
tariff  of  1828  reduced  our  commerce  in  four 
years  500,000  tons !  When  the  tariff  was  re- 
duced in  1838,  ten  years  after,  it  increased  our 
tonnage  from  1,606,149  to  1,180,763!  Ever 
since  the  war  began  our  tariff  has  been  tin- 
kered some  seven  times  under  war  necessities 
and  peace  pretexts  for  debt  and  expenses,  and 
we  have  fallen  off  nearly  one-half  our  tonnage. 
When  will  we  learn  that  by  the  care  of  commerce 
we  get  the  revenue !  Neglect  trade,  and  we 
sponge  out  the  sources  of  wealth.  Then  revenue 
dies.  What  we  want  is  a  system  of  taxation  by 
which  you  pay  for  your  imports  with  your  ex- 
ports. This  gives  rise  to  commerce.  Then  your 


gains  are  double.  Then  you  do  not  "  give  your 
stock  of  more  to  that  which  had  too  much  ;"  but 
you  gain  something,  and  can  afford  to  give  much 
and  more.  The  idea  of  opening  up  China  to  us, 
as  Mr.  Burlingame  proposes,  with  a  system  of  ex- 
actions impeding  all  commerce,  is  folly.  Better 
begin  by  ridding  this  nation  of  its  devices  to  rob. 
Then  you  may  talk  about  reaching  the  five  hun- 
dred millions  of  Mongolians  with  your  trade, 
(Cheers.)  I  do  not  object  to  a  revenue  tariff. 
Let  us  pay  our  expenses  by  it,  and  cancel  gradu- 
ally the  principal  and  pay  the  interest  of  the  debt. 
I  do  object  to  the  lack  of  economy,  the  lavish  ex- 
penditure, the  class  favoritism,  the  inequalities  of 
taxation,  monopolizing  subsidies,  the  greed  of 
capital,  all  of  which  wear  out  the  thews  and  sin- 
ews of  industry,  and  without  result.  (Cheers.) 

APPEAL   TO    THE   WORKINGMAN. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  effect  of  Radical  rule  on 
the  workingman  who  cannot  buy  as  much  now 
for  a  day's  work  as  he  used  to.  ("True,  sir.") 
Say  he  receives  $2.50  per  day  now,  instead  of  $1 
years  ago,  yet  he  does  not  now  live  so  well  on 
the  greater  as  formerly  on  rthe  smaller  sum. 
(Cheers.)  He  does  not  lay  up  anything  for  a 
rainy  day.  A  friend  has  compared  1859  with 
1868.  Your  four  days'  work  then  bought  a  bar- 
rel of  flour.  It  now  takes  eight  days.  One 
day's  work  five  pounds  of  tea,  now  .two  pounds  ; 
one  day's  work  once  bought  thirty  pounds  of 
sugar,  now  fifteen  only  ;  one  day's  work  fifteen 
pounds  of  coffee,  now  five ;  one  month's  work 
once  clothed  a  family  of  reasonable  size,  now  it 
takes  three  month's  work.  It  is  the  same  with 
rent,  &c.  Taxation  and  extravagance  have 
made  clothes,  food,  and  houses  higher.  Al- 
though wages  are  nominally  higher,  they  do  not 
help  so  much  as  formerly.  "  You  feed  on  en- 
chanted viands:"  greenbacks,  promises,  phil- 
anthropy, spites,  and  revenges.  "  You  seem  to 
feed,  and  pine  with  hunger."  Take  the  taxes  : 
In  1860,  only  $1.60  per  head  was  paid  by  the 
people.  In  1866,  $14  per  head  was  paid  in  cus- 
toms and  internal  revenue.  In  the  year  before 
the  war,  the  national  expenses  were  $41,000,000. 
This  year,  not  counting  interest,  they  will  be 
near  $270,000,000.  They  ought  not  to  be  $100,- 
000,000.  Remember,  there  are,  besides,  State, 
city,  and  county  expenses  as  well.  Europe  is 
absorbing  a  great  part  of  the  interest  on  our 
debts.  Our  labor  goes  to  Europe  to  fatten  ab- 
sentees and  nabobs.  Do  you  wonder  people  are 
beginning  to  consider  how  to  pay  this  indebt- 


32 


edness  by  cheap  methods  ?  For  myself,  when 
the  time  comes  to  pay  it,  I  will  agree  to  pay  it 
in  such  money  as  may  be  then  lawful.  I  accept 
the  Democratic  platform,  for  by  that  time  I  hope 
Democracy  will  have  had  a  chance  to  make 
paper  as  good  as  gold,  if,  indeed,  any  paper  cur- 
rency remains.  (Cheers.)  But  I  want,  mean- 
while, another  plank  recognized  for  the  relief 
of  labor,  and  that  is,  equality  of  taxation. 
(Cheers.)  There  is  no  reason  why  the  immense 
interests  in  Federal  bonds  should  not  be  taxed. 
Our  debt  represents  so  much  capital  destroyed 
for  labor,  but  laid  up  for  non-producers.  Bonds 
are  a  form  of  wealth.  Why  should  they  escape 
taxation  ?  But,  it  is  said,  "  The  States  cannot 
tax ;  the  courts  forbid."  I  know  what  the 
courts  have  said  as  to  States ;  but  who  denies 
that  the  power  resides  in  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment ?  Why  has  it  not  been  exercised  ?  This 
is  one  of  the  Radical  sins  of  omission,  for  which 
the  laboring  masses  are  calling  them  to  judg- 
ment. (Cheers.)  This  exemption  is  class  legis- 
lation. Suppose  you  get  $100  a  month  for  your 
labor  here,  how  much  remains  after  the  taxes 
are  taken  out  ?  Remember,  they  are  taken  out 
of  your  sweat.  Consider  Federal,  State,  city 
and  county  taxes,  and  the  high  prices  by  reason 
of  them  Consider  that  it  is  turned  into  gold, 
and  you  will  have  left  about  fifty  dollars  only. 
Taxes  are  high,  for  the  debt  is  large  and  grow- 
ing. Low  taxes  come  of  economy,  not  of  armies 
and  Bureaus.  Low  taxes  come  of  content,  peace, 
and  union  These  beget  order  and  economy. 
They  tax  you  for  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  fifteen 
millions  a  year.  I  don't  care  what  General 
Howard  asserts.  An  officer  who  knows,  informs 
me  it  is  fifteen  millions.  They  draw  from  var- 
ious funds  to  make  it  out :  from  the  deficiency 
brtts  of  the  future  and  the  means  unused  in  the 
war  office.  It  is  all  a  sham  that  the  negroes  pay 
for  themselves  in  cotton  taxes.  If  they  do,  what 
need  of  their  being  the  wards  of  the  nation — 
smart  enough  to  rule  you,  but  not  smart  enough 
to  get  their  own  living.  (Laughter  and  cheers.) 
They  tax  you  for  the  army  in  peace  more  than 
you  were  taxed  when  Democrats  made  war. 
For  one  year,  since  October,  1867,  the  army  has 
cost  $133,140,000  ;  and  in  fifteen  months,  $160,- 
858,000.  This  is  aside  from  navy  pensions,  in- 
terest on  the  debt,  and  the  civil  list.  These 
sums  are  the  very  excesses  of  prodigality.  It 
shows  that  our  nation  is  '«  buoyant  by  corrup- 
tion, and  efficient  only  by  the  sword."  (Cheers.) 
Nearly  this  amount  has  to  be  paid  for  the  pub- 


lic debt.  How  much  more  would  have  been 
taken  if  there  had  not  been  an  end  of  greenback 
issues  ?  Two  hundred  and  sixty-eight  millions 
were  asked  as  subsidies  by  railroads  and  other 
interests  in  the  last  Congress.  They  were  asked 
by  monopolists  who  were  so  good  as  to  offer 
Government  a  second  mortgage  on  the  property. 

REFORMS — ECONOMY. 

Bo  you  ask  me  how  the  Radical  party  can 
economize  ?  Repeal  Bureaus  for  lazy  people, 
good  enough  to  legislate  and  vote,  but  too  lazy 
to  work.  Save  "eighteen  millions  a  year  by 
withdrawing  the  bank  currency,  and  making 
banks  use  the  legal-tenders,  till  they  can  be  re- 
deemed. Stop  deficiency  bills,  which  are  de- 
vices to  cheat  the  people,  by  a  false  inventory 
of  expenditures,  a  prolific  source  of  deceit,  cor- 
ruption and  extravagance.  Make  Congress  re- 
duce its  own  useless  expenditures.  Why  should 
a  fragment  of  a  body  in  three  years  double  its 
contingent  expenses  ;  running  up  from  18G3, 
when  it  was  $353,000,  not  counting  members' 
pay,  to  $725,000  the  past  year  !  Congress  should 
begin  at  home  !  (Cheers  )  Stop  the  distribution 
of  our  arms  to  negro  governments.  The  last  ap- 
propriation I  see  was  for  218,000  rifled  muskets 
at  four  million  dollars  !  Gui  bono  f  Stop  the 
military  expenses  which  I  have  shown  to  be 
over  a  hundred  millions  a  year.  Come  back  to 
the  Democratic  policies  of  Jackson,  Polk  and 
Pierce,  when  not  half  as  much  was  spent  for  the 
whole  government  as  is  now  spent  in  one  de- 
partment ;  when  not  as  much  was  spent  in  years 
as  now  in  months.  (Cheers.)  Above  all,  restore 
harmony  between  the  races  and  between  the 
States.  Then  expenses  will  stop.  The  party 
which  can  do  this,  is  the  party  in  harmony  with 
the  dominant  classes.  I  do  not  despair  of  cur- 
ing these  great  evils.  No  great  nation  need 
despair.  The  disorders  are  not  of  Democratic 
making,  but  their  physician  must  be  a  Demo- 
crat. (Cheers.)  General  Wilson  and  others 
have  no  cabalistic  words  for  cure.  Copper- 
heads, traitors,  Hampton,  Cobb,  &c.T  are  not 
cures.  They  are  silly  insults  and  falsehoods. 
They  give  disease ;  they  cannot  cure.  The 
Radical  party  will  wreck  upon  these  rocks  of 
extravagance.  (Cheers.)  Yet  this  very  rock, 
rightly  used,  will  afford  us  the  foundation  for 
a  Democratic  beacon.  Give  up  your  old  preju- 
dices against  Democracy.  In  navigation  you 
cannot  always  steer  in  a  direct  course,  but  you 
may,  by  tacking,  arrive  at  your  harbor  !  Give 


33 


up  all  servility  to  jour  preachers.  (Laughter.) 
They  work  in  hate,  and  not  in  love.  Do  not  be 
over  pious — (laughter) — in  politics.  When  the 
Rabbi  fasted,  the  dogs  ran  away  with  his  din- 
ner. (Laughter.)  Take  care  of  your  dinners — 
in  other  words,  your  houses  I 

WHY    OUR   CREDIT   FAILS. 

It  is  time  the  knife  was  put  to  this  Radical 
poisonous  and  luxuriant  growth.  To  do  that, 
we  should  raise  our  credit  by  a  lasting  concord  ; 
we  should  induce  labor  to  the  end— prosperity. 
We  should  at  least  take  the  hardens  off  of  com- 
merce, and  allow  the  old  glory  to  dawn  on  our 
flag  arouud  the  world." 

Why  does  our  nation  have  to  pay  for  its  mo- 
ney twice  as  much  as  Russia,  and  more  than 
twice  as  much  as  England  ?  What  reason  is 
there  why  we  should  be  dishonored  in  our  cred- 
it as  well  as  paralyzed  in  our  industries  ?  Is  it 
because  of  the  civil  war  ?  That  is  three  years 
gone.  Is  it  altogether  because  we  fear  a  war  of 
races  ?  Is  it  not  because  the  South  is  still  held 
by  black  terrorism  and  military  power  ?  Is  it 
not  because  the  genius  of  Radicalism  is  convul- 
sive and  destructive  ?  Is  it  not,  in  fine,  because 
Radicalism  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  genius  of 
our  government  ?  (Cheers.)  It  cannot  work 
with  our  system.  It  kills  States.  It  disfran- 
chises intelligence.  It  enfranchises  ignorance. 
It  gives  bounty  to  laziness.  It  piles  burdens  on 
industry.  It  gives  power  to  the  malevolent.  It 
strives  to  lift  up  a  stolid  race  to  the  level  of 
their  superiors,  by  dragging  down  the  superior. 
Was  it  not  enough  for  Radicalism  to  impair  our 
Government  ?  Was  it  not  enough  to  demolish 
the  structure  before  our  eyes?  "Must  they 
stone  their  friends  in  war  and  their  props  in 
peace  "  with  the  ruins  ?  How  long  can  the  old 
Federal  craft  stand  it  ?  She  was  launched  by 
great  men.  (Cheers.)  We  know  who  laid  her 
keel.  When  she  was  completed  at  Philadel- 
phia, in  1787,  the  pumps  stood  ready  for  the 
leakage,  the  capstans  to  heave  anchor,  the  an- 
chors ready  for  every  vicissitude,  the  ship  head, 
like  the  beak  of  the  ancient  galley,  decorated 
•with  the  figure  of  liberty— an  ornament  and  a 
utility — and  the  bottom  coppered  to  protect 
from  barnacles  and  weeds,  ready  to  be  launched 
forth  from  ihe  stocks.  Her  banners  are  flying, 
the  ropes  are  cut,  the  last  prop  is  knocked 
away.  The  old  ship  quivers  like  a  thing  of 
life.  Slowly  at  first,  then  with  an  accelerated 
motion,  till  the  timbers  fairly  crack  and  the 
3 


keel  fires.  She  plunges,  rises,  shoots  forward^ 
and  is  ready  !  (Cheers.)  Thirteen  States  cheer 
her  as  the  great  ark  of  political  safety  !  Thank 
Grod  !  she  was  never  f  udderless  from  1787,  till 
Radicalism  unshipped  the  rudder.  (Cheers.) 
She  sailed  ever  by  the  charter,  till  Radicalism 
tore  it  into  fragments !  She  will  soon  be  afloat 
in  her  olden  track.  (Cheers.)  She  will  bear 
the  precious  freightage  of  many  millions,  and 
all  the  hopes  of  generations  in  the  future. 
(Cheers.)  Upon  her  deck,  we  will  have  a  Dem- 
ocratic captain  !  One  who  knows  the  ship's  pa- 
pers and  can  sail  her  safely  into  a  haven  of  re- 
pose, and  his  name  will  be  Horatio  Seymour. 
(Immense  cheering.)  If  it  would  be  reverent 
and  not  obtrusive  on  those  most  intense 
thoughts,  which  are  associated  with  the  unseen 
world,  I  would  in  this  great  affliction  and  peril 
of  our  country,  once,  so  united,  happy,  free  and 
progressive,  offer,  in  all  humanity  my  prayer 
to  the  Father  of  us  all,  for  guidance  and  direc- 
tion. As  the  patriots  of  Poland  once  prayed 
in  their  affliction,  I  would  pray  Thee,  0  Lord ! 
who  for  so  many  years  didst  surround  us  with 
power — restore  to  us  our  ancient  glory  and  our 
free  country  !  Thou  hast  been  touched  by  the 
woe  and  desolation  of  the  South ;  let  the  light 
of  Thy  blessing  fall  upon  our  blighted  States 
with  the  influences  of  answered  prayer,  and  re- 
store to  us  our  free  country  ?  Oh,  Lord  !  whose 
just  hand  crushes  the  empty  pride  of  the 
earth,  restore  to  us  the  simplicity  of  our  better 
days !  May  the  cross  which  has  been  insulted 
by  the  language  of  hate,  even  from  the  pulpits, 
be  garlanded  with  the  chaplets  of  victory,  as 
the  emblem  of  a  loving,  restored,  free  country 
(Applause.) 


PENNSYLVANIA  CAMPAIGN. 


Extract  from  Mr.  Cox's  Speech  at 
Harrisburg,  July  18th. 


FELLOW-CITIZENS: — William  Penn  was  the 
author  of  the  idea,  if  not  of  the  phrase,  "  Let  us 
have  peace!"  When  he  landed  at  New  Castle 
October  27,  1682,  he  had  in  his  heart  the  sweet 
love  he  had  learned  of  the  Quaker,  Thomas  Loe 
— friendship  to  all  our  kind — negro,  Indian  ; 
and  he  even  loved — I  beg  pardon  of  our  Radical 
brethren — he  even  had  some  respect  for  his 


34 


own  white  race !  He  had  stood  in  the  dock  be- 
fore Jeffries,  the  infamous,  and  had  demanded, 
as  others  have  since,  fair  trial,  according  to  the 
Magna  Charta  and  the  common  law.  But  when 
he  came  hither,  he  found  the  Aborigines  the 
true  owners  of  the  soil.  He  did  not  steal  their 
woods  and  streams.  That  sort  of  larceny  was 
left  for  the  pious  people  of  Plymouth  and  Mas- 
sachusetts colonies.  He  never  recognized  the 
infernal  and  Pagan  doctrine  of  conquest.  He 
had  his  charter.  He  apparently  owned  the 
soil.  It  came  from  royal  seals.  Charles  gave 
him  some  right.  But  he  had  a  sounder  princi- 
ple. He  would  not,  in  blood  and  in  hate,  in 
cnpidity  or  malice,  claim  his  proprietary  right. 
Under  the  shade  of  your  great  forests  he  treated 
with  the  natives,  and  fixed  by  sanctions  now  a 
part  of  your  pride  and  history,  the  right  which 
civilization  and  Christianity  gave  to  his  adven- 
ture. William  Penn  was  no  carpet-bagger. 
The  calumet  was  smoked,  as  it  ought  to  be  now, 
in  gentle,  loving,  kindness.  The  planter  was  of 
no  more  account  in  the  eyes  of  your  founder 
than  the  red  man.  He  even  made  a  jury  of 
twelve — no  military  commissions — a  jury  of  six 
Indians  and  six  planters,  to  settle  disputes  He 
gave  Magna  Charta  to  the  woods  ! 

One  thing  your  great  founder  established ! 
He  made  your  State,  at  its  birth,  a  free  Com- 
monwealth ;  and  he  made  a  cement  for  its  per- 
manency in  the  principles  of  concord. 

The  varied  and  beautiful  scenery  of  the  Sus- 
quehanna — which  artists  so  love  to  copy, — is  it 
not  made  more  beautiful  by  the  associations  to 
which  I  have  referred  ?  Here  is  the  land,  so 
splendid — which  was  the  occasion  and  locality 
for  illustrating  these  principles  of  liberty  and 
justice !  Hither  came  English,  German,  Welsh, 
Irish,  and  French.  Here  were  gathered  Pro- 
testant, Catholic,  Quaker,  Huguenot,  and  Pres.- 
byterian  !  Hither  came  the  Yorkshireman — 
John  Harris— from  whom  this  Capital  is  named- 
followed  by  the  "  boys"  from  Donegal,  Ireland ! 
Out  of  this  rare  and  wonderful  egg  sprang  the 
present  Imperial  State  of  Pennsylvania  !  It  was 
born  of  Democracy  !  It  was  in  its  germ,  the 
very  essence  of  unaristocratic  adventure.  It 
was  the  home  of  justice  and  liberty.  All  classes 
came  here,  with  the  motto  of  its  founder  :  "  Let 
us  have  peace." 

There  will  be  no  realization  of  this  prayer 
till  military  force  and  anarchy  shall  cease. 
Upon  Pennsylvania  depends — now  as  two  hun- 
dred years  ago — the  issues  of  peace.  They 


have  been  made  grand  by  time.  If  you  honor 
your  founder,  you  will  at  least  ask  why  peace 
has  not  come  with  the  cessation  of  war. 

Peace  can  never  come,  my  friends,  under  the 
Radical  rule  of  hate.  Inquire  first  into  the 
reasons  why  we  have  discord.  It  never  came 
under  the  Quaker  teaching  of  Penn.  To  cure 
these  troubles  you  require  a  resort  to  the 
best  Christian  teaching.  That  teaching  is  in 
consonance  with  the  ideas  of  our  govern- 
ment. 

After  a  discussion  of  economical  questions  Mr. 
Cox  discussed  at  length  the  fiscal  questions,  ad- 
vocating equal  taxation  of  all  property,  whether 
in  bonds  or  not ;  denounced  the  greenback  issue 
as  a  fraud  on  labor,  urged  the  reduction  of  ex- 
penditures, and  the  return  to  the  Democratic  days 
of  economy,  and  hard  money.  He  said  the  debt  was 
growing;  the  cost  of  the  government  is  now  $14, 
when  it  was  the  year  before  the  war,  but  $1.60 
per  head ;  that  whereas  it  only  cost  us  seventeen 
hundred  millions  for  seventy-two  years  before 
1861,  it  has  cost  us  the  same — lacking 
two  hundred  millions — for  the  past  three  years  of 
Radical  rule.  He  pointed  out  various  ways  in 
which  economy  could  be  practiced ;  beginning 
with  Congress,  Bureau,  and  army.  He  said  it  had 
been  proven  that  our  commence  was  dead.  This 
was  an  evidence  that  production  was  dying.  Our 
very  skill  even  in  agriculture  is  failing.  The 
burdens  of  Radical  taxation  incumber  the  land. 
We  are  already  a  third  rate  power  in  ships  and 
commerce.  Our  imports  are  failing  with  our 
exports,  with  the  lapse  of  time.  Our  bonds  are 
going  abroad.  We  are  paying  tribute  to  nabobs, 
absentees  and  capitalists.  There  is  only  one 
relief  for  men  of  business  and  men  of  patriotism. 
It  is  in  change.  The  quack  should  be  dis- 
missed. A  new  physician  should  be  called.  In 
all  that  gives  stability  to  industry,  freedom  to 
trade,  standards  to  currency,  equality  in  taxation, 
economy  in  administration,  self-government  to 
States,  peace  to  the  Union ;  at  home,  peace — 
abroad,  peace  and  glory — in  all  that  makes  a 
law-abiding  and  Constitution-revering  party — the 
Democracy  will  stand  in  the  next  seventy  years, 
as  it  did  in  the  seventy  years  before  the  war ; 
a  wall  of  adamant  against  the  waves  of 
Radicalism!  It  is  this  party  that  has  made  our 
land  great  and  our  government  strong,  not  by  the 
collisions  of  civil  war,  but  by  the  cultivation  of 
concord.  Under  the  control  of  Democracy, 
we  should,  before  now,  have  had  this  whole  con- 
tinent banded  under  a  federal  head,  holding  as 


35 


gravity  holds  the  stars,  half  our  hemisphere,  by  the 
system  of  constitutional  law. 

Before  the  war  the  Democracy  strove  to  save 
the  nation  with  earnest,  patriotic  and  peaceful 
endeavors.  During  the  war  it  commanded  its 
sons  to  the  field  with  melancholy  pride;  and  it 
gave  its  sweetest  blood  to  the  cause,  as  it  had 
given  its  kindest  counsels.  Horatio  Seymour,  by 
his  speeches  and  his  administration  in  New  York, 
is  a  fair  type  and  noble  illustration  of  Democratic 
patriotism.  His  record  is  crystalline.  In  vain 
slander  assails  it.  He,  like  the  party  whose  ex- 
ponent he  is,  accepted  the  results  of  the  war  as 
they  were  declared,  as  in  honor  bound,  and  in  the 
spirit  of  Christian  amnesty,  "with  malice  to  none, 
charity  to  all,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds, 
and  to  do  all  that  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just 
and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  all  nations." 
In  this  spirit  the  Democracy  intend  to  contend. 
If  they  fail,  then  the  stars  in  their  courses  are 
against  them.  If  they  succeed,  the  spirit  of 
Christ  will  temper  the  people,  and  all  that  is  for- 
giving and  good  will  encompass  the  Constitution 
as  sentinels  for  its  guard  and  its  sweet  honor ! 


Extract  from  Mr.  Cox's  Philadelphia 
Speech,  September  17,  1868. 


From  the  Age,  Philadelphia. 

Last  evening  Concert  Hall  was  densely  packed 
with  people,  many  of  whom  were  ladies,  who  had 
convened  for  the  purpose  of  hearing  the  Hon. 
Samuel  S.  Cox,  ex-Congressman  from  Ohio,  who 
was  announced  to  speak  on  the  topic,  "  The  Busi- 
ness Condition  of  the  Country."  The  hall  was 
crowded  long  before  the  hour  of  commencement 
had  arrived  with  intelligent  citizens  who  desired, 
in  the  midst  of  the  political  excitement  and  mis- 
representation so  current  at  the  present  time,  to 
hear  the  important  issues  now  pending,  calmly 
andargumentatively  discussed.  The  fame  of  Mr. 
Cox  had  preceded  him,  and  he  had  no  sooner 
made  his  appearance  upon  the  stage  than  he  was 
greeted  with  a  storm  of  huzzas  and  cheers  that 
must  have  astonished  him. 

The  President  of  the  meeting,  Mr.  Patterson, 
in  well-timed  remarks,  then  introduced  the  orator 
of  the  evening,  Hon.  S.  S.  Cox,  who  said : 

SPEECH   OF  MR.   COX. 

GENTLEMEN  :  I  remember  once  to  have  heard 
performed  a  play  called  the  ' '  Benoiton  Family  " — 


a  fast  family.  Throughout  all  the  shif tings  of  the 
scene,  the  leading  personage,  Madame  Benoiton, 
is  always  inquired  after,  but  does  not  appear.  She 
is  ahvays  about  to  go  out  or  expected  to  return. 
(Laughter.)  We  may  be  allowed  to  inquire  of  our 
Radical  Rulers,  on  this  of  all  days  in  the  year, 
after  the  leading  feature  of  American  Republican- 
ism. May  we  not  ask,  in  an  humble  way,  after 
the  American  Constitution  ?  It  is  really  the  head 
of  our  political  family.  As  this  is  its  natal  day, 
and  this  city  its  birthplace,  our  Radical  friends 
will  not  think  it  treason  if  I  make  a  few  allusions 
to  its  birth  and  its  function.  In  pursuance  of  a 
resolution  of  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
of  the  21st  of  February,  1787,  the  Convention  was 
appointed  which  met  in  this  city ;  that  Conven- 
tion adopted  the  Constitution;  it  was  submitted 
to  the  sereral  States,  and  ratified  by  Pennsylvania 
on  the  12th  of  December,  1787.  It  bore  the  great 
name  of  Washington !  It  was  signed  by  such 
names  as  Sherman,  King,  Hamilton,  Dayton, 
Franklin,  Wilson,  Morris,  Ingersoll,  Clymer, 
Madison,  Rutledge,  an  I  Pinckney.  (Cheers.) 
These  were  the  organic  law-makers  of  our  Repub- 
lic. I  disdain  to  speak  of  the  Constitution  cod- 
dlers  of  this  time  in  the  same  breath.  (Laughter 
and  cheers.)  They  gave  us  a  matchless  instru- 
ment. It  was  the  refinement  of  human  polity.  It 
has  been  the  theme  of  the  philosophic  minds  of  the 
world  since,  as  it  embodied  all  the  wisdom  and 
eliminated  all  unwisdom  of  the  ages  before  its  ap- 
pearance. It  supplied  the  defects  of  the  Articles 
of  Confederation.  It  did  more.  It  reconciled  all 
local  and  commercial  diversities.  It  gave  national 
unity.  This  unity  lasted.  It  lasted  until  the  mad 
zealotry  of  sections,  North  and  South,  embroiled 
the  unwilling  people.  It  was  sought — first  by 
hate,  then  by  war — to  sever  the  bonds  of  constitu- 
tional union.  •  It  is  now  sought  again  to  undo  the 
great  work  of  1787  by  fresh  invasions  upon  the 
integrity  and  harmony  of  the  Federal  system. 
What  a  rash  advance  upon  the  truth  of  history 
and  the  genius  of  those  who  made  our  govern- 
ment, has  been  made  since  eighty-one  years  ago 
this  day  !  When  the  Convention  sent  out  its  re- 
script to  the  Congress,  with  the  Constitution  for 
ratification,  it  was  urged  that  the  only  desideratum 
in  a  national  government,  was  the  power  to  make 
war,  peace,  and  treaties,  and  to  levy  taxes  and 
regulate  commerce.  So  jealous  were  they  of  these 
powers  that  the  fathers  divided  the  trust  among 
three  organizations.  They  called  on  the  States  to 
make  sacrifices  of  State  pride  and  individual  liberty 
for  these  objects.  The  States  responded.  Said 


36 


Washington:  k'In  this  system  is  involved  our 
prosperity,  felicity,  safety,  national  existence." 
So  it  was.  So  it  is  to-day !  I  wish  to-night  that 
that  the  17th  of  September  could  be  held  sacred  to 
the  memory  of  the  immortal  names  and  the  grand 
deeds  of  those  who  made  and  ratified  the  Consti- 
tution. I  find  among  those  who  ratified  such 
Pennsylvanians  as  Benjamin  Rush,  James  Wilson, 
and  Frederick  A.  Muhlenberg.  They  were  men 
who  looked  forward,  not  to  a  confined  area  for  our 
government,  but  to  a  cordon  of  "  uniformed 
States,  who  were  to  be  inhabited  by  myriads  of 
our  race."  When  Mr.  Wilson  proposed  to  ratify 
the  Constitution  in  the  Pennsylvania  Convention 
his  first  thought  was  one  now  so  unusual — of  polit- 
ical and  Christian  charity.  "Diversity  of  senti- 
ment demanded  a  spirit  of  mutual  forbearance  and 
conciliation."  It  was  as  indispensable  then  as  it  is 
now.  Concession  and  sacrifice  were  held  to  be 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  expanding  quality  of 
the  United  States  Government ;  expanding  in  only 
one  direction — the  expanse  of  its  defined  and  limited 
powers  over  new  and  forming  States  !  The  great 
elements  of  national  unity  were  secured;  the 
States  were  strengthened,  and  by  their  strength 
the  Union  grew.  We  became  strong  against  all 
the  world,  for  we  fulfilled  what  Pennsylvania  in 
adopting  the  Constitution  promised,  "  salutary  per- 
manency in  magistracy  and  stability  in  the  laws." 
Alas !  what  a  fall  since  then,  under  Radical  dis- 
pensations !  (Cheers.) 

This  was  our  happy  Union  till  1861.  Then 
Radicalism  began  its  work.  The  reptile  bored 
into  the  mound,  the  fierce  waters  rushed  in  with 
violence,  and  to-day,  the  remnant  only  of  the  best 
system  of  human  government  stands  as  a  warning 
against  excess  and  corruption.  (Cheers.) 

I  do  not  come  here  to  you  to  speak  so  much 
about  politics  as  of  the  direful  effects  which  this 
excess  produces  upon  business.  I  ^am  just  from 

Maine where  I  have  seen  the  whole  coast  denuded 

of  its  shipyards  and  marine  tonnage  by  Radical 
rule ;  and  it  comes  home  to  my  apprehension,  that 
other  interests  will  tumble  into  the  same  abyss 
under  the  same  burdens  and  excesses.  Constitu- 
tions were  intendod  to  save  and  protect,  not  to 
pester,  harass,  oppress,  and  repress.  Our  Consti- 
tution, so  matchless  for  its  reserved  powers,  and  so 
wonderful  in  the  division  and  checks  upon  its 
granted  powers,  has  been  utterly  set  at  naught  in 
war  and  peace  by  the  dominant  party.  That  party 
cannot  reconcil  the  sections,  States,  or  races  in  the 
Union.  It  is  not  in  harmony  with  our  organism 
as  a  government. 


To  perceive  why  the  Radical  policy  has  failed, 
and  why  it  will  fail  when  completed,  involves  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  and  character  of  our  Union. 
As  by  the  violation  of  these  laws  war  came,  so  by 
their  observance,  and  by  that  alone,  will  peace 
come.  As  the  immediate  cause  of  the  war  was  the 
assertion  of  a  right  to  throw  off  the  paramount 
Federal  authority  and  withdraw  States,  so  the 
cause  of  the  present  discontent  is  the  practical  as- 
sertion of  the  right  of  Congress  paramount  to  the 
organic  law — to  keep  States  out — to  regulate  the 
conditions  of  their  pretended  admission,  to  inter- 
meddle in  their  suffrage,  and  to  carry  on  what 
legislation  they  require  by  citizens  of  other  States, 
not  familiar  with  their  needs. 


Address     of   Hon.    S.    S.    Cox9     at 
'   Bloomsburg,  Pa.,  on  October  8. 


THE   FINANCIAL   SITUATION     THOROUGHLY   RE- 
VIEWED. 

Hon.  S.  Cox  delivered  an  exhaustive  and  per- 
fectly unanswerable  speech  before  an  immense 
mass-meeting  here  to-day.  The  burden  of  this 
statesman's  address  was  a  direct  appeal  to  the  ma- 
terial issues  before  the  country,  involving  a  mer- 
ciless yet  perfectly  candid  exhibition  of  the  Radi- 
policy  of  taxation  and  extravagance.  The  speech 
will  be  the  best  campaign  document  for  our  voters 
yet  issued,  and  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  De- 
mocrats in  this  State  to  whom  THE  WORLD  will 
present  it  will  make  an  admirable  use  of  startling 
yet  truthful  statistics. 

Mr.  Cox  said : 

PEOPLE  OF  PENNSYLVANIA:  In  addressing 
you  I  am  not  unmindful  of  your  origin,  character 
and  history.  You  are  a  composite  people.  There 
is,  as  I  read,  very  little  black  or  yellow  in  your 
mosiac,  and  a  good  deal  of  the  Emerald.  (Laugh- 
ter.) Your  origin  shows  the  English  Friend, 
united  with  the  Scotch-Irish,  in  which  there  is  a 
large  infusion  of  German,  which  took  place  just 
before  the  Revolution,  and  since  then  an  addition 
of  the  pure  Celt.  Your  steadfastness,  thrift, 
honesty,  impulse,  and  energy  spring  from  this 
rare  commingling  of  sturdy  Caucasians.  The  de- 
fiance of  wrong  which  Penn  illustrated,  his  pa- 
tient yet  stubborn  combativeness,  his  love  of  prin- 
ciple as  above  all  earthly  reward — joined  with  the 
canny  characteristics  of  the  Scotch,  and  the  ming- 
ling with  the  fervid  nature  of  the  Irish  and  the 
hospitable  economic  qualities  of  the  German — are 


37 


to-day  your  peculiarities.  Your  capacious  red 
barns,  bigger  than  your  houses  ;  vour  olden  love 
of  a  sure  and  standard  currancy  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver ;  your  distrust  of  irredeemable  paper  as  mo- 
ney ;  your  dislike  of  needless  and  profligate  taxa- 
tion ;  your  desire  to  be  frugal  while  you  are  just 
— have  made  at  once  the  most  valuable  and  the 
most  steadfast  of  the  people  of  America.  Not 
alone  by  geographical  position,  but  by  mental  and 
moral  qualities,  is  Pennsylvania  the  keystone ! 
(Cheers.)  When  it  falls  out  of  place,  the  "  majes- 
ty of  proportion "  is  lost  to  our  political  arch. 
Hence  this  nation  is  "  waiting  for  the  verdict " 
which  you  are  to  render.  Yours  is  the  arbitra- 
ment of  'our  great  struggle.  If  you  maintain 
your  place,  the  arch  will  become  a  rainbow  in 
the  sky,  giving  promise  of  a  better  future ! 
(Cheers.) 

HISTORIC  ALLUSIONS. 

Your  history  harmonizes  with  your  origin  and 
character.  Pennsylvania  epitomizes  the  very 
genius  of  the  Republic.  Were  not  her  foundations 
laid  in  Peace  ?  The  treaty  of  Penn  at  Shakamax- 
on — was  it  not  typical  of  another  conference  out 
of  which  came  another  bond — the  Constitution  of 
the  federal  system  ?  Were  not  each  made  in  con- 
cord ?  True  the  treaty  was  never  sworn  to.  but 
it  Avas  never  broken.  The  Quakers  did  not  like 
oaths.  Political  oaths  are  a  bad  sign.  If  there 
was  one  thing  ruffling  to  Quaker  serenity,  it  was 
the  perpetual  proffering  of  oaths — oaths  of  religi- 
ous test,  oaths  of  political  test,  oaths  of  supre- 
macy, oaths  of  purgation,  oaths  of  every  sort. 
His  "yea  and  nay"  had  more  significance  than  all 
the  oaths  of  the  army  in  Flanders.  How  his  de- 
scendants can  approve  of  these  liadical  adjurations 
upon  every  conceivable  occasion,  I  cannot  imagine. 
Nearly  everything  connected  with  reconstruction 
and  the  war  seems  to  be  copied  from  English  ty- 
ranny. We  outstrip  them.  We  have  oaths  as  to 
the  belief  of  the  affiant — oaths  as  to  physiology — 
oaths  that  black  is  white — oaths  for  lawyers  and 
preachers — oaths  as  to  abstract  questions — oaths 
to  maintain  political  tenets — oaths  that  the  party 
has  done  nothing  and  oaths  that  it  won't  do  any- 
thing—oaths of  all  kinds.  (Laughter.)  It 
would  seem  as  if  Radicalism  had  made  us  a 
swearing  generation.  (Laughter.)  I  don't  know 
when  there  was  before  so  much  hard  swearing  re- 
quired. If  the  old  Quaker  did  not  swear,  he  did 
not  break  his  affirmation,  as  some  of  his  beligerent 
and  degenerate  descendents  have  done.  He  never 
broke  the  Indian  treaty,  as  some  of  his 


descendants  have  broken  the  Constitu- 
tion. It  was  original  ly  cemented  in  the 
spirit  of  friendship  and  faith.  It  was  sacred 
to  him.  Within  your  borders  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  had  its  seat.  Here,  too,  was 
the  General  Government,  till  1800.  Here,  the 
Constitution  was  made.  Brandywine,  German- 
town  and  Valley  Forge,  do  they  not  stand  out 
in  your  annals  with  illuminated  text?  Since 
then  you  have  illustrated,  by  an  almost  steadfast 
Democratic  history,  that  patience,  sacrifice,  per- 
sistency, Democratic  principle  and  love  for  writ- 
ten law,  which  her  origin,  character,  and  histo- 
ry betoken.  I  feel  proud  to-night  that  I  stand 
;  within  the  limits  of  a  tolerant,  honest  Demo- 
I  cratic  State.  (Cheers.)  The  victory  you  gained, 
last  year,  in  the  election  of  Judge  Sharswood — 
(cheers; — and  the  interest  of  the  republic,  can 
you  not  repeat  it  on  Tuesday  next  ?  (Cheers.) 
I  bid  you  struggle  for  it  like  men.  You  did  your 
duty  to  the  republic  in  the  great  civil  war,  as 
you  did  in  all  former  trials  of  the  (Government. 
Much  as  the  Democracy  are  maligned,  they 
joined  with  their  opponents,  on  the  25th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1861,  in  your  Legislature,  to  denounce  se- 
cession. They  quoted  General  Jackson's  mes- 
sage of  16th  January,  1833,  and  pledged  the 
faith  and  power  of  Pennsylvania  to  sustain  the 
Goverment  and  destroy  rebellion.  No  Demo- 
crat was  wanting  in  that  vote  or  recreant  to 
that  pledge.  (Cheers.)  New  York  gave  to  you 
its  aid,  through  its  honest  patriotic  Governor, 
Horatio  Seymour.  (Cheers )  She  gave  it  to 
you  in  your  darkest  hour.  You  will  not  allow 
the  memory  of  it  to  be  blasted  by  slander  or 
forgotten  with  time.  You  pledged  your  re- 
sources, your  iron,  coal,  lumber,  salt,  petroleum  ; 
your  farms  from  the  Delaware  to  the  Ohio ;  all 
your  rich  valleys  and  mineral  mountains,  to 
maintenance  of  the  Government  and  the  restor- 
ation of  the  Union.  (Applause.)  Our  oppo- 
nents give  us  no  credit  for  helping  their  ad- 
ministration with  means  and  men.  Their  lan- 
guage is ;  "  We  put  down  the  rebellion.  We 
did  the  fighting !  Who  saved  Western 
Virginia  ?  (Cheers  for  McClellan.)  Who 
at  Antietam,  saved  Pennsylvania  from  in- 
vasion? Whose  name — the  shade  only 
in  name — rallied  the  fight  at  Gettysburg  ?  Of 
the  three  millions  of  soldiers  on  the  army  rolls, 
were  they  all  Republicans  ?  Only  one  million 
eight  hundred  thousand  men  voted  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. Where  did  the  rest  come  from  ?  And  were 
all  the  Republicans  warriors  (Laughter)  ?  Were 


38 


there  no  Wide- Awakes  nursing  their  babies  am 
their  wrath  at  home  (Laughter)  ?  Who  were  the 
braves  that  .had  the  money  to  buy  substitutes 
Who  of  the  Radical  orators  '•  Drew  out  the  sheath 
and  threw  away  the  sword,"  and  bled  for  his 
country  like  a  blackberry  pie  (Laughter)  ?  It  is 
insulting,  it  is  idle,  to  hurl  taunts,  my  Radical 
friend,  against  your  tax-paying  neighbor,  whose 
Democratic  boy  fought  this  great  fight  for  the 
Government.  The  Democracy  made  as  many 
sacrifices  as  you.  More.  He  joined  with  his  po- 
litical adversary,  and  gave  his  strength  to  your 
administration  for  the  sake  of  the  Union  (Cheers.) 
What  have  we  in  return  for  these  sacrifices  ? 

Taxes  !  taxes  !  nothing  but  taxes  ! 

Grinding  our  noses  as  sharp  as  axes. 

(Laughter.)  The  grindstone  is  still  turning, 
faster  and  faster ;  and  for  all  our  sacrifices,  ex- 
penditures, and  blood,  we  have — no  Union,  no 
peace,  no  hope,  save  in  the  Democracy.  Where 
is  the  model  of  Government  which  Jefferson 
pictured  for  you  in  his  inaugural ?  "A  wise 
and  frugal  Government  which  shall  restrain 
men  from  injuring  one  another,  shall  leave 
them  otherwise  free  to  regulate  their  own  pur- 
suits of  industry  and  improvement,  and  shall 
Dot  take  from  the  mouth  of  labor  the  bread  it 
has  earned."  He  called  this  the  sum  of  good 
government.  This  only  was  necessary  to  close 
the  circle  of  our  felicities. 

PERVERSION    OF   GOVERNMENT. 

What  a  mockery  on  this  Democratic  defini- 
nition  have  we  to-day  ?  Is  not  Government 
itself,  instead  of  restraining — provoking  and 
helping1  men  to  injure  one  another  ?  Is  it  not 
dashing  race  against  race — State  against  State  ? 
Is  there  not  chaos  in  ten  States  ?  unrest,  fever, 
bad  blood,  decay  ?  Is  there  freedom  for  indus- 
try or  improvement  ?  Is  not  the  mouth  of  labor 
robbed  of  its  hard  earned  bread,  and  what  for  ? 
To  aggravate  bad  rule,  to  perpetuate  rancorous 
revilings  and  partisan  power,  to  destroy  human 
contentment,  and  to  insult  Christian  charity. 
This  is  the  sum  of  good  government!  This  is 
the  circle  of  our  political  felicities  ! 

CAUSE   OF   FORBEARANCE. 

The  wonder  is  that  this  nation  has  been  so 
patient  under  such  exactions  and  wrongs.  I 
look  around  for  a  solution  of  this  forbearance 
We  find  it  not  in  the  wisdom  or  frugality  of  our 
rulers,  but  in  the  benignity  of  Providence,  in 
spite  of  their  folly  and  extravagance. 


Since  the  war,  has  not  Providence  favored  us 
with  bountiful  harvests  ?  Therefore  it  is  that 
we  have  not  felt,  to  the  point  of  resistance  the 
load  of  taxation.  We  have  been  remonstrant, 
but  patient  Let  one  unfavorable  season  occur, 
and  language  will  fail  to  depict  the  misery  that 
will  ensue.  Do  you  know  that  Pennsylvania 
has  been  signally  favored  ?  Among  all  the 
States  she  has  fared  best.  But  she  is  as  she  is 
in  spite  of  the  misrule  which  hampers  industry 
in  other  sections  and  States ;  though  even  she 
suffers  in  common  with  the  bodv  of  which  she 
is  so  important  a  portion.  She  not  only  bears 
her  share  of  the  general  burden,  but  her  own 
particular  share.  These,  as  I  shall  show  you, 
are  enough  to  crush  even  her  iron  energies. 
Nearly  all,  if  not  all,  of  our  annual  earnings, 
are  paid  to  support  this  Government,  as  it  has 
been  run  under  Congressional,  military,  negro, 
aud  Bureau  rule.  How  long,  if  this  be  so,  can 
this  Government  remain  solvent  ?  How  long 
if  we  continue,  shall  we  invite  capital  and  immi- 
gration from  abroad  ?  If  it  continue  the  next 
year  we  will  have  either  to  lay  more  taxes,  issue 
more  bonds,  or  go  into  bankruptcy.  If  already 
our  burdens  are  consuming  our  net  products,  is 
it  not  time  for  the  people  of  Pennsylvania  to 
arouse  and  demand  better  servants  ?  (Cheers.) 
You  are  a  people  not  anxious  to  avoid  taxes 
fairly  laid  and  judiciously  paid  out.  You  want 
to  know  that  you  get  your  money's  worth  in  the 
government !  You  do  not  want  to  pay  for  ne- 
gro rule,  military  repression,  anarchy,  and 
lawlessness.  (Cheers.)  If  you  pay  taxes  you 
want  the  equivalent.  You  want  a  "  frugal  and 
wise  government."  If  you  cannot  get  the  sum- 
total  of  good  government,  you  desire  to  approxi- 
mate to  it ;  and  if  you  cannot  close  the  circle, 
you  want  something  of  the  felicities  we  once  en- 
joyed under  Democratic  auspices ! 

FISCAL   PROPOSITIONS  DISCUSSED. 

Now  I  make  the  following  proposition  ; 

1.  That  the  working   and  business  men  of 
Pennsylvania  pay  directly  or  indirectly  in  tax- 
es, on  an  average,  over  $128  per   annum,  per 
capita. 

2.  That  these  enormous   taxes,  since  the   war, 
are  from  seven  to  ten  times  as  much  as   before 
the  war. 

3.  That  taking  the  census  of  186U,  with  the 
number  of  producers   as  a  basis,  realizing  over 
$6,500,000,000  a  year,  and  after  deducting  what 
is  used  in  living,  the  rest  at  this  time  is  aUused 


39 


by  atrocious  system  of  taxation  ;  so  that  this  na- 
tion is  not  growing  under  Radical  rule,  as  it  did 
under  Democratic  rule,  but  is  degenerating  into 
bankruptcy  and  ruin. 

4.  That  the   cost  of  living  is  three   times  as 
much  now  as  then,  while  wages  do  not  bear  the 
rate  of  increase. 

5.  That  our  expenditures  are  growing  daily, 
and  will  be  greater  hereafter   even  than  in  the 
past  three  extravagant  years. 

6.  That  all  our  agricultural  crops,  and  that 
immigration  are  decreasing,  while  our  expen- 
ditures are  growing.     This  decrease  is  in  conse- 
quence of  ruinous  taxation. 

7.  That  the  represention  which  has  preserved 
the  character,   form,  and  poise  of  t}iis  Federal 
system,  is  being  disordered  and  the  system  des- 
troyed 

8.  That  our  expenditures  are  going  on  at  an 
accelerated  rate — forty  millions  per  month — so 
that   we  must    either    tax    more,    issue    more 
bonds,  or  go  into  insolvency. 

9.  It  has  ruined  the  coasting  trade  as  well  as 
the   Southwestern  river  trade,    and  destroyed 
the    natural    blessings    which  the   unrivalled 
watershed  of  Pennsylvania  has  bestowed. 

10.  Radical  rule  is  destroying  one  great  re- 
source of  the  people,  not  only  for  their  families, 
but  as  a  revenue  to  the  Government  by  the  do- 
nation of  public  lands  to  monopolies  ;  that  near- 
ly two  hundred  millions  of  acres  have  been  thus 
absorbed;  or  three   hundred   a*nd    twenty-two 
million  of  dollars  givenjiway  to  private  persons, 
which  belonged  to  the  people. 

Lastly,  there  is  no  relief  from  this  extrava- 
gent,  exclusive,  partial,  and  ruinous  adminis- 
tration, but  in  a  change  of  rules ;  that  those 
who  have  made  this  havoc  are  continuing  and 
will  continue  the  same  system :  and  that  any 
change  would  be  for  the  better. 

TAXATION    PER    HEAD    IX    PENNSYLVANIA. 

To  prove  these  statements  I  will  give  you  the 
figures.  Figures  may  be  made  to  lie,  but  when 
figures  are  facts,  they  are  the  truth  and  cannot 
lie.  The  figures  I  shall  quote  are  facts,  obtained 
from  official  authority.  The  statistics  of  Penn- 
sylvania I  shall  quote  from  the  report  of  Hon. 
J.  F.  Hartranft,  Auditor-General  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  the  Federal  statistics  from  the  re- 
ports of  Federal  officials.  The  latest  State  and 
municipal  reports  I  have  been  able  to  obtain 
are  those  for  the  year  which  ended  December  1, 
1866— fifteen  months  after  the  war  closed.  In 


that  year,  the  local  taxes  per  capita  in  your 
most  densely  populated  county,  Philadelphia* 
were  as  follows  : 

City  and  County  taxes $8  17 

State  taxes 1ST 

Federal   taxes  . 1647 

Total $25  61 

This  is  not  for  every  workingman,  but  for 
every  head  of  population,  including  old  men* 
boys,  women,  and  children.  The  proportion  of 
workingmen  to  the  whole  population  is  as  one 
to  five.  Each  workingman  and  each  business 
man  has  to  pay  for  five  persons,  himself  inclu- 
ding. Multiply  $25.61  by  5  ;  you  have  the  tax- 
ation laid  upon  each  producer  in  your  commu- 
nity. The  total  is  $128.05.  This  is  about  the 
sum  that  each  Pennsylvanian  now  pays  for  the 
privilege  of  being  governed.  These  are  the  fig- 
ures of  1866.  The  figures  of  1868  are  no  less, 
but  rather  more.  I  cannot  obtain  the  city, 
county  and  State  taxes  for  eighteen  sixty-eight, 
but  the  Federal  taxes  show  the  results  which, 
follow. 

And  let  us,  for  the  purpose  of  veiifying  mj 
statement,  make  a  comparison  of  taxes  in  1860, 
1866,  and  1858,  to  compute  the  per  capita. 

Federal  Taxes. 

Per 

Tear.                    Population,    capita.  Total  Taxes. 

I860 31,445,080        $1.78  $56,054,599 

1866 34,505,882        16:17  558,032-620 

1868....  estimated)  37, 000, 000        11.00  405,638,133 

Stale  Taxes. 

I860 ....  Pennsylvania $8,01  $2,368,967 

1866 Pennsylvania 1,27  4,060,148 

City  and  County  Taxes. 

I860....  Philadelphia 4,13  2,334,252 

1866....  Philadelphia 8,17  4,084,539 

But  the  comparison  of  Federal  taxes  in  1866 
and  1868  does  not  tell  the  whole  story.  The 
expenditure  of  this  liadical  government  were 
greater  in  1868  than  1867-  They  will  be  greater 
still  in  1869.  Look  at  the  figures  which  I  quote 
from  the  celebrated  Letter  of  Director  Delmar,  of 
the  Statistical  Department. : 

FEDERAL  EXPENDITURES. 

Fiscal  years. 

1867— Total  expenditures,  actual.  ..$392,444,291 
1868— Total  expenditures,  actual. ..  414,913,604 
1869— Total  expenditures,  actual. ..  482,059,201 

Federal  taxes,  1866 $558,032,620 

Federal  taxes,  1868 405,638,135 


40 


The  expenditures  in  1868  were  22J  millions 
greater  than  in  1867,  and  in  1869  they  will 
"be  67  millions  greater  then  in  1868.  The  differ- 
ence between  these  amounts  and  the  taxes  lev- 
ied are  obtained  by  borrowing,  by  issuing  gov- 
ernment stock,  and  so  increasing  the  debt,  at  70 
cents  to  the  dollar.  In  other  words,  for  every  70 
dollars  of  deficiency  in  taxes  you  are  pledged 
to  pay,  by  Radical  policy,  $100  in  gold  in  the 
future.  Compare  this  astounding  burden  with 
the  one  we  bore  in  1SCO,  previous  to  the  war, 
when  the  then  recent  panic  of  1857  made  the 
cry  of  over  taxation  the  burden  of  oratory : 

Federal  taxes,  1850 56,054,599 

Federal  taxes.  1866 558,032,620 

Federal  taxes,  1868 ..405,638,133 

ten  times  as  much  in  1866,  one  year  after  the 
war  eloped,  and  seven  times  as  much  in  1868 
three  years  after  the  war  closed  ! 

EXTRAVAGANCE  IN   PENNSYLVANIA. 

This  extravagant  increase  is  not  confined  to 
Federal  administration.  Your  executive  docu- 
ments show  that  your  own  State  Legislature, 
like  Congress,  doubled  the  expenses  of  Demo- 
cratic  time?.  Nine  years  of  Radical  rule  has 
cost  you  $2,251,744.14;  being  $1,120,469.74  in 
excess  of  the  nine  years  before  Radicalism 
cursed  your  State.  The  cost  of  a  Democratic 
legislature  in  1858  was  $172,452.15  :  of  the  Re- 
publican legislature  in  1868,  about  $350,000.  In 
1869  the  expense  was  $321,451.  They  copy  Con- 
gress. Is  this  wise  and  frugal  1  Republican 
officers  in  Pennsylvania  have  boasted  of  their 
economy,  and  that  they  have  paid  off  a  part  of 
your  State  debt.  Compare  the  expenses  of  1858 
with  1867  :  Printing,  1858,  $41,889  ;  1867,  $130,- 
138.  Judiciary,  1858,  $134,466  ;  1857,  $256,677, 
Library,  |185P,  $3,£  93;  1867,  $30,726.  Public 
Buildings  nearly  three  times  as  much,  and 
"  Miscellaneous"  has  grown  from  $7,794  in  Dem- 
ocratic 1858  to  $88,518  in  Radical  1867!  They 
boast  they  have  paid  over  $4,000,000  of  your  State 
debt;  they  have  not  reduced  it  as  much  by  $148,- 
105  per  annum  as  the  Democrats  did  while  in 
power.  The  expenses  generally  have  been  trebled. 
Do  you  wonder  that  each  voter  pays  $128  per 
annum  in  Pennsylvania  1  In  New  York  it  is 
even  more.^  '.Taking  all  taxes,  there  is  $180,- 
000,000  levied  on  New  York  State  !  More  than 
11  per  cent  on  the  assessed  values ;  $45  per  cap- 
ita, or  $225  for  each  head  of  family  !  England 
only  pays  $10.85,  per  capita  ;  France,  $9.59 ; 


Russia,  $3.59  ;  Turkey,  $1.85  ;  Prussia,  $5  35  ; 
Austria,  $7.42  ;  New  York,  $45  ;  Pennsylvania, 
$25  per  capita,  or  $128  to  the  voter  !  Is  this 
wise  or  frugal  ?  Who  pays  the  burden,  and 
how  ?  How  do  you  pay  this  $128  per  annum  ? 
You  pay  it  indirectly — but  you  pay  it ;  for  labor 
pays  it.  You  pay  it  in  the  price  of  everything 
you  eat,  drink,  and  wear,  it  creeps  into  your 
pocket,  snakelike — insidiously.  Look  at  the 
prices !  Every  tax  is  a  part  of  the  price.  To 
be  exact,  I  take  those  which  ruled  in  the  whole- 
sale markets  in  New  York  on  the  1st  of  October 
in  each  year. 


October  1,  1868. 
Tax  or  Duty. 


2425c.  f  ft,  gold... 
1150.$  ft,  gold... 


$1.05 
24 

12 

70 

1.85 
35 
04} 

1.50 


October  1,  1860. 

Groceries. 
Tea.  Hyson,  common  to 

fair,  per  fi  ft $ 

Coffee,  Kio,  prime,  $  ft 
Susar,    Cuba,    grocery, 

$ft 063C.  f  ft,  gold.. 

Molasses,   Porto  Eico, 

f>  gal 308c.  f  gal.,  gold 

Salt,   Li'pool,    ground, 

$    sack 1  l()!24c.  f  bush.,  gold 

Pepper,  $ft 07|15c.  $  ft,  gold,.. 

Flour,  $}  ft OSlNone 

Whiskey,  domestic,    .f} 

gal 17500.$  gal.,  cur., 


Total $2  01 


For  what  cost  $2  01  in  1860  you  have  now  to 
pay  $5  85£,  or  nearly  three  times  as  much.  Is  it 
necessary  to  extend  the  comparison  to  articles  of 
clothing  and  to  rents  ?  These  are  but  a  few  arti- 
cles. Ycur  matches  cost  eight  times  as  much  as 
formerly!  Salt,  candles,  and  soap  more  than 
double ;  starch  15  where  it  once  cost  10 ,  your 
boots,  shoes,  books,  stationary,  furniture,  cutlery, 
crockery,  have  increased  in  price  100  per  cent.  ; 
dry  goods  50  per  cent,  j  drugs  and  cigars  300  per 
cent. ;  paints  200  per  cent.,  and  go  on.  You  know 
better  than  I  do,  how  exhorbitant  prices  are.  This 
is  due  to  taxation.  To  prevent  this,  let  us  reduce 
prices  of  1868  to  gold;  $5.85  worth  of  goods,  in 
currency  can  be  purchased  for  $4.18  cents  in 
gold.  This  is  twice  as  much  as  the  prices  in  1860, 
and  16  cents  gold  or  24  cents  currency  to  spare. 
Now  what  wages  do  you  get  as  compared  with 
1860?  Do  you  get  three  times  as  much,  in  cur- 
rency ?  No.  Do  you  get  2  1-10  times  as  much 
in  gold  ?  No.  You  go  down  into  your  coal 
mines.  You  are  hidden  from  the  sweet  light  of 
the  sun.  You  work  and  delve  and  sweat  and 
worry  all  day  and  far  into  the  night.  Your  ex- 
hausting toil  obliges  you  to  eat  heavy  food  to  keep 
up  the  wear  and  tear ;  and  what  is  the  result  ? 
More  work,  more  sweat,  and  when  the  conflict  of 
races  begins  in  the  South,  as  it  will  under  this  bad 
rule,  you  will  find  Pennsylvania  athrong  with 


41 


negroes  who  have  not  even  a  carpet  bag.  (Laugh- 
ter.) To  whom  the  Freedman's  Bureau  can  no 
longer  give  support,  and  whom  it  will  send,  as  it 
is  now  sending,  North  to  compete  with  you  at 
lower  wages  in  the  paths  of  industry.  Is  this  the 
sweet  humanity  you  were  taught  to  vote  for  ?  Is 
this  either  wise  or  frugal  ?  Yet  we  are  told  the 
poor  man  does  not  pay  these  taxes.  He  has  no 
money.  I  say,  he  who  produces,  in  the  last 
'  analysis,  pays  all.  (Cheers.)  Is  not  the  working 
man  taxed  on  all  he  uses ;  his  tools,  his  food,  his 
clothing,  his  rents  ?  There  is  no  exaggeration  in 
this  verse.  The  poor  man  can  sing  it  truthfully, 
even  though  it  be  jocosely  : 

"We  are  taxed  on  the  cradle  in  which  the  child  lies, 
Taxed  on  the  bed  upon  which  the  man  dies  ; 
Taxed  on  the  shroud  that  covers  his  body, 
Taxed  on  the  shroud,  though  we  know  it  is  shoddy. 

(Laughter.) 

Taxed  on  our  clothing,  our  meat,  and  our  bread, 
Our  carpets  and  dishes,  our  tables  and  bed, — 
Our  tea  and  our  coffee,  our  fuel  and  lights  ; 
Taxed  so  severely  we  can't  sleep  o'  nights: 

(Laughter.) 

TOTAL  ANNUAL  EARNINGS  OF  THE  COUNTRY,  AND 
HOW  THEY  ARE  ABSORBED. 

To  illustrate  how  unbearable  the  burden  of 
taxation  is  which  is  now  placed  upon  us,  I  will 
call  your  attention  to  some  very  important  stat- 
istics. I  have  been  at  great  pains  to  obtain  the 
authentic  data.  These  data  will  show  the  bal- 
ance sheet  of  the  nation.  I  pray  you  to  heed 
the  facts  and  conclusions. 

In  1860,  the  total  population  of  this  entire 
country  was  31, 445,080.  Of  this  number  about 
one-fifth,  or  6,289,016  were  working  and  busi- 
ness men.  The  whole  number  of  persons  who 
had  any  occupation  at  all  was  8,287,043,  as  set 
forth  in  the  census  of  1860.  But  of  this  number 
about  one-fourth  were  engaged  in  occupations 
that  do  not  directly  contribute  towards  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth.  I  refer  to  religion,  science, 
the  fine  arts,  education,  the  learned  professions, 
amusements,  officers  of  the  law,  servants,  bro- 
kers, agents  and  middlemen,  in  a  great  variety 
of  occupations.  They  are  consumers  of  other 
men's  production. 

The  total  value  of  all  the  products  of  the  la- 
bor of  these  6,289,016  workingmen,  or,  if  you 
please,  these  8,287,243  persons  having  any  oc- 
cupation at  all,  or  if  you  choose  to  add  the  then 
working  slaves,  who  numbered  2,021,248,  ma- 
king altogether  10,308,291  persons  who  had  any 
occupation  whatever,  was  $6,454,174,245. 


The  folio-wing  table  from  the  International 
Almanac  of  1866,  furnished  the  data  : 

OCCUPATION. 

NUMBER 

or 
PERSONS  . 

VALUE  OP 
ANNUAL 
PRODUCTS. 

Agriculture  ....           .... 

3,394,685 

2,021,248 
1.765,532 
919,351 

670,432 
158,157 
1.078,986 

$2.125,072.,810 

632,650,624 
1,105.223.032 
1,007,148,864 

455,617,824 
99,006.282 
1,029,454,809 

Slavery  (principally  agricul- 
tural)        .... 

Laborers  without  particular 

Mines  

All  other  occupations  
Total.  

10,308,291 

$6,454,174,245- 

The  combined  product  of  every  person  in  this 
country  who  contributed  in  any  way,  either  di- 
rectly or  indirectly,  in  freedom  or  in  slavery, 
either  by  his  physical  labor  or  his  intellect  or 
his  capital,  towards  the  production  or  conserva- 
tion of  wealth  or  its  proper  and  economical  dis- 
position was,  if  valued  in  dollars  and  cents,, 
worth  about  six  thousand  five  hundred  million 
dollars  !  By  another  method  of  computation, 
that  of  valuing  the  product  of  the  year,  the 
gross  cost  of  distributing  them  for  the  purpose 
of  consumption,  and  by  capitalizing  as  gross 
product  the  labor  and  capital  spent  upon  the 
improvement  of  real  property,  the  result  was 
$6,794,624,040.  By  a  third  method  of  computa- 
tion, that  of  taking  the  income  returns  of  1865 
as  a  basis  of  estimate,  the  result  was  $6,902,771,- 
591.  This  is  a  substantial  agreement.  In  such 
large  figures  it  is  a  very  remarkable  agreement- 
The  average  of  the  three  methods  of  computa- 
tion shows  that  the  value  of  the  annual  product 
of  all  the  labor  of  this  country  was,  in  1860, 
$6,848,697,815.  Now  for  my  first  conclusion  ! 
Of  this  enormous  sum  of  values,  it  required  no 
less  than  $6,135.218,929,  or  over  89  per  cent,  of 
the  whole  amount,  to  support  the  whole  popula- 
tion of  31,445,080  souls.  So  that  something 
less  than  11  per  cent,  was  the  total  amount 
saved  during  the  year  1860.  Even  this  is  enor- 
mous. The  saving  made  each  year  at  that  pe- 
riod was  valued  at  $713,478,886.  /  append 
this  table  sJiowing  the  value  of  the  gross  earn- 
ings of  the  10,308,291  industrial  population  in 
1860  ;  the  cost  of  supporting  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  31,445,086  souls  during  the  year,  and 
the  value  of  the  net  earnings  or  savings  of 
the  year.  Here  it  is : 

Total  gross  earnings  or  product $6,848, 697.81& 

Total  cost  of  support  or  consumption..  6,315,278,929 

Total  savings  or  net  product $713,478,885 

There  is  no  ledgerdemain  in  these  figures ! 
Seven  hundred  millions  a  yaar  was  the  sum  of 


42 


our  annual  net  product  in  1860.  It  is  no 
greater  now,  even  though  the  population 
has  increased  to  perhaps  37,021,000  of  souls. 
Our  foreign  commerce  is  entirely  destroyed  ; 
the  industry  of  the  South  is  prostrated,  and  her 
industrial  population  is  kept  in  idleness  by  politi- 
cal excitement  and  uncertainty,  and  the  vicious 
measures  introduced  by  Congress.  All  the  taxa- 
tion we  can  pay  must  come  out  of  this  sum  of 
seven  hundred  and  thirteen  millions.  If  we  do 
not  take  it  out  of  this  sum,  we  must  sell  our 
property  our  land,  our  houses,  our  stock  df  food, 
and  our  clothing.  We  must  raise  the  means  to 
live  first.  To  live  is  more  pressing  than  to  have 
government.  But  this  computation  is  far  too 
liberal ;  I  take  another  mode.  It  is  an.  axiom 
with  economists  that  about  two  and  a  half  per 
cent,  on  all  the  values  represents  the  net  earnings 
of  a  country.  But  if  we  call  this  per  cent,  three 
and  a  half,  we  will  not  be  accused  of  an  under- 
statement of  our  net  profits.  If,  then,  $560,- 
000,000,  or  three  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  our 
values,  be  the  estimate,  we  shall  find  that,  after 
paying  for  the  expense  of  government,  we  shall 
have  nothing  left. 

The  State  taxes  are  not  easy  to  compute  with- 
out greater  labor  than  I  am  able  to  devote  to  the 
subject  at  this  stage  of  the  campaign ;  but  they 
are  estimated  at  $250,000,000,  an  amount  which 
in  my  judgment  is  far  below  the  truth.  Now  re- 
duce that  portion  of  the  expenditures  of  1868-9, 
which  are  in  gold  to  currency  :  I  mean  the  inte- 
rest on  the  public  debt,  the  gold  interest  paid  to 
the  bondholders  which  is  untaxed,  and  which 
amounts  to  $130,000,000  a  year  alone.  Add  to 
this  such  of  the  Navy  Department  and  Consular 
and  diplomatic  expenses  as  are  paid  in  gold,  say 
$10,000,000  more,  and  you  will  have  another 
conclusion.  First,  let  me  give  you  a  table  show- 
ing the  estimated  taxes  to  be  paid  by  the  people 
of  the  United  States  in  1868-9 : 

Federal  expenditures $481,059,201 

Premium  on  $140,000,000  gold  @ 

$140 56,000,000 

State  and  local  taxes 250,000,000 


Total  taxation $788,059,101 


Total  net  earnings $560,000,000 

We  have  seen  the  amount  of  taxation  is  $788,- 
059,201 ;  so  that  the  net  product  of  the  nation 
fails  by  over  two  hundred  millions  to  pay  th 
taxes  of  this  Radical  administration.  ("Hear 
hear.")  Where  will  this  end !  In  an  utter  con 


scation   of   all   values,    lands,  houses,    monies, 
>onds,   and  stocks.     Will  it  stop  short  of  repu- 
liation  ?     Who  is  there  to  protest  ?     Where   is 
he  spirit  now  like  that  which  actuated  Hampden, 
vhen,  rather    than  pay   the  shilling  tribute,  he 
risked  the  taint  of  treason  ?     How  different  from 
he  spirit   of    those  brave  Hollanders   who',   be- 
ieged  in  the  town  of  Haarlem   by  the  rapacious 
Alva,  beheaded  eleven  of  their  Spanish  prisoners, 
and  with  grim  facetiousness  threw   their  heads 
>ver  the  walls  into   the  camp  of  the  Spaniards, 
vith  this  note:   "Duke  of  Alva,   thou  hast  de- 
manded a  tenth  from  the  town  of  Haarlem.    Here 
is  the  sum,  with  an  extra  head  for  the   interest ! " 
The  revolt,   I   counsel,    is   not  one   of    physical 
force,  but  of  mind.     I  would  not  have  you  cut  off 
the  heads  of  Radical  law-makers  and  tax-gather- 
ers.    Chop    off    their   political   heads.      (Cheers 
and  laughter.)     The  interest  with  which  I  would 
have  you  repay  them  is  not  a  mutilated  body,  but 
10,000  additional  ballots  for  Seymour  and  Blab- ! 
(Cheers.)     Men   of    Pennsylvania!    you   should 
know  what  oppressive  taxation  means.     You  re- 
member the  old  tocsin  of  '76  now  in  Independent 
Hall !     Certainly  you  recollect  the  whiskey  rebel- 
lion of  1784 !     Your   ancestors  were  not  apt  to 
be     blind     to     the     exactions    of     tyranny    or 
the    corruptions   of    peculation.     Emulate    their 
spirit,    and     next     Tuesday     will      sound      the 
tocsin    of    a    regenerated    Republic !      (Cheers.) 

And  now  I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
danger  we  are  in  of  being  met  by  a  deficient 
harvest : 

First,  I  will  show  you  how  the  general  agri- 
cultural crops  of  the  country  have  -fallen  off  as 
compared  with  population  since  1860.  I  will 
then  show  how  the  exports  have  fallen  off ;  and 
finally  how  the  crops  of  Pennsylvania  have 
diminished ;  and  how  the  old  boast  of  thirty 
bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  is  changed  to  ten 
bushels,  and  even  less. 

Value  of  principal  agriculture  crops  of  the 
United  States  at  various  periods  : 


Total  value 
Year.  in  gold. 

1840 $612,796,684 

1850  974,494,980 

1860 1,624,844,498 

1867  1,778,200,000 


Gold 
value  per 

Population,    capita. 
17,669,453          $36 
23,191,876  45 

31,445,030  52 

34,505,882  52 


I  can  here  only  give  the  totals  You  will 
observe  how  production  advanced  from  1840  to 
1850,  and  from  1850  to  1860.  Since  that  period 
it  has,  in  spite  of  reaping  and  mowing  machines, 
and  improved  methods  of  all  kinds,  stood  still. 
Mind,  I  am  not  comparing  periods  of  peace  with 


43 


a  period  of  war,  and  years  of  peace  which  fol- 
lowed war  or  other  calamities.  All  the  periods 
mentioned  were  years  of  peace  The  year  1840 
was  two  years  after  the  great  panic.  The  year 
1850  was  two  years  after  the  close  of  the  Mexi- 
can war,  and  the  year  1867  was  two  years  after 
the  civil  war.  I  will  now  compare  the  quanti- 
ties of  the  product  of  the  great  staples  in  18t»0 
and  1867. 

Quantities  of  certain  staples  produced  in  the 
United  States  in  1360  and  1867  respectively. 
From  the  report  of  the  Director  of  the  Bureau 
of  Statistics  for  1867  ;  page  34. 

Per  capita  Per  capita 

Total  crop  Pop.  Total  crop    Pop. 
^860.     31,445,080     1867     34,505,882 


Ind.  Corn,  bush.  838,792,740 

Wheat,   bush...  173,104,924 

Potatoes,  bush.  153,243,893 

Tobacco,  Ib.s ....  134,209,461 

Cotton,     Ibs 2,154,820,800 

€ane  sugar,  Ibs.  230,982,000 

Butter,     Ibs....  459,681,372 


867,946,  ?95 
175,000,000 
107,200,976 
388,128.684 
885.790,400 
40,000,000 
460,000,000 


25 

5 

3>3 
11* 
26 

i# 

13  # 


Here  are  the  very  elements  and  staves  of  life  ! 
What  better  evidence  than  this  of  the  oppressive 
nature  of  Radical  rule  !  Observe  the  imminent 
danger  of  future  short  crops  and  years  of  fam- 
ine and  unbearable  distress ! 

FAILURE    OF    IMMIGRATION. 

No  better  test  of  our  prosperity  can  be  ad- 
duced than  the  number  of  our  immigrants.  It 
is  a  sign  of  good  government.  Immigration 
has  fallen  off.  I  again  quote  from  the  reports 
of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  for  1867,  page  81. 
Immigration  into  the  United  States  from  1866 
to  1868,  inclusive : 

Fiscal  Years.  Immigrants  arrived. 

1866,  report  of  1167 330,705 

1867,  report  of  1867 311,996 

1868,  report  of  1868 273,402 

The  year  after  the  war  closed,  the  immigra" 
tion  was  330,705.  We  suppose  that  with  the 
close  of  hostilities  the  country  would  be  restored 
Peace  and  industry  would  be  encouraged  and 
rewarded.  Iron  workers  and  miners  from  Eng- 
land and  Wales  came  into  this  State.  I  ain 
told  that  many  of  them  went  home  discouraged. 
The  immigration  in  the  following  year  fell  off 
more  than  18,000.  In  1868  it' again  fell  off-some 
38,000  more.  Moreover,  there  is  now  what 
there  never  was  before,  a  considerable  number 
of  persons,  chiefly  Southerners,  harassed  by  in- 
vidious legislation,  who  leave  this  country  an- 
nually for  foreign  parts.  Their  number  has  not 
been  accurately  determined,  but  it  is  thought 
to  be  over  25,000  per  annum. 


REPRESENTATION    DESTROYED. 

According  to  our  Constitution,  two  Senators 
are  elected  for  each  State.  It  was  not  the  de- 
sign to  permit  such  Senatorial  representation 
until  the  community  was  sufficiently  numerous 
to  entitle  it  to  at  least  one  member  of  Congress. 
Thus,  there  would  be  equality  with  States  al- 
ready admitted.  But  what  is  the  practice  now? 
Virginia  is  split  into  two  States  to  obtain  addi- 
tional Radical  votes  in  the  Senate.  All  the  Re- 
construction measures  are  framed  with  the  same 
view.  Look  at  the  figures  again.  Pennsylvania, 
with  a  population  of  3,500,000,  has  but  two 
Senators.  Nebraska,  with  a  population  of 
scarcely  30,000,  has  the  same  number.  Ne- 
vada, with  a  population  of  6,8i)0  in  I860,  has 
now  the  same.  Florida,  with  a  population  of 
141.000,  has  the  same.  Observe  the  effects  of 
this  in  financial  and  other  topics  of  the  pocket 
— on  tariff,  taxes,  internal  improvements,  post- 
age, schools,  commerce,  railroads,  land,  and  all 
subjects  on  which  the  Federal  Government  de- 
cides. Was  there  ever  so  bold  a  scheme  to 
grasp  and  perpetuate  power  ?  This,  too,  at  the 
expense  of  the  people  and  to  the  ruin  of  our 
system. 

THE   EXPENSES    $40,000   A    MONTH — WHY  ? 

The  official  statements  of  the  expenditures  of 
the  General  Government  during  the  current 
fiscal  year  continue  at  an  undiminished  rate. 
Congress  before  it  adjourned  provided  for  the 
appointment  of  several  hundred  new  officers. 
We  have  a  new  batch  of  inspectors,  gaugers, 
supervisors,  clerks,  and  assistants  in  the  Inter- 
nal Revenue  Bureau.  It  is  a  political  ring  with 
ardent  tendencies.  Congress  providedfor  50  addi- 
tional clerks  in  the  Second  Auditor's  Office.  It 
created  a  new  governmental  department — the 
Bureau  of  Education.  This  was  a  perfect  sine- 
cure But  it  was  intended  to  teach  the  young 
idea  how  to  shoot  Radical  ideas.  (Laughter.) 
It  is  not  only  contrary  to  the  genius  of  our  Fed_ 
eral  Government,  but  it  robs  the  localities, 
State  and  municipal,  of  their  care  over  educa- 
tion. It  is  the  prelude  to  the  coolie  farce  of 
Burlingame.  One  clause  of  the  Chinese  treaty 
grants  to  the  little  Mongolian  pigtails  the  use 
of  Schools  under  Federal  management.  (Laugh- 
ter.) How  it  will  be  managed  in  the  Asiatic 
line  can  be  judged  a  little  by  the  African  ar- 
rangement of  the  Bureau.  (Cheers.)  In  other 
words,  it  is  a  provision  for  the  benefit  of  the 


44 


school  masters  and  marins  of  one  locality.  They 
are  to  be  pensioned  on  a  forbearing  people,  for 
the  regeneration  of  Democratic  California  and 
the  Mongolian  race.  Besides,  Congress  passed 
the  Tenure-of -Office  bill  to  secure  their  places  to 
every  dishonest  public  servant  who  is  ready  to 
support  the  Radical  organization.  It  left  the 
whole  machinery  of  a  government  erected  in 
time  of  war  in  full  activity  in  a  year  of  pro- 
found peace. 

MAGNITUDE    OF    THE   BURDENS. 

These  extravagant  expenditures  were  fully 
set  forth  in  Mr.  Delmar's  letter.  The  Radical 
press  attacked  it  with  fury,  but  they  only 
found  an  impregnable  array  of  facts  before 
them.  They  then  attacked  the  estimates  of  the 
current  year,  but  now  a  late  telegram  from 
Washington  comes  to  meet  them  even  on  this 
ground. 

The  statist  computed  the  expenditures  of  the 
current  year  in  detail,  and  the  total  was  $482,- 
059,201.  The  telegraph  now  informs  us  that 
the  monthly  expenditures  during  the  current 
year  1868,  average  nearly  forty  millions  a  month, 
actual  moneys  paid  out  of  the  Treasury,  or  $480,- 
000,000  per  annum  ;  within  a  fraction  of  the  es- 
timate made. 

Men  of  Pennsylvania  !  cannot  you  call  a  halt 
to  this  marauding  band  of  plunderers  !  Forty 
millions  a  month !  Where  does  it  go  ?  Much 
of  it  finds  its  way  into  the  pockets  of  Radical 
hirelings  and  contractors,  brokers  and  agents. 
I  am  at  a  loss  for  comparisons  and  illustrations 
to  show  you  the  amount  of  our  debt  and  ex- 
penses. Take  the  debt,  two  and  a  half  billions  ! 
If  you  should  count  $50  a  minute,  on  the  ten- 
hour  rule  of  a  day's  work,  it  will  take  some  270 
years  to  count  our  debt.  (Cheers  )  If  you  count 
only  the  expenses  of  a  year,  say  five  hundred 
millions,  at  the  above  rate,  it  will  take  you  fifty 
years,  or  fifty  men  one  year,  to  reach  the 
amount !  If  you  count  a  dollar  a  minute  it 
would  consume  a  period  from  the  era  of  Cain  to 
Ben.  Butler.  (Laughter.)  If  you  would  cover 
an  area  with  dollar  greenbacks,  it  would  cover 
Jupiter  and  his  moons,  or  plug  up  Bout  well's 
hole  in  the  sky,  where  he  wanted  to  fix  John- 
son. (Laughter.)  Seriously,  what  good  might 
it  not  do,  frugally  developed  ?  What  utilities 
it  might  serve,  left  in  the  peoples'  purses  !  The 
expenditures  of  the  Government  for  one  month 
would  construct  and  equip  1,000  miles  of  rail- 
road at  $40,000  a  mile,  the  rate  at  which  the 


actual  cost  of  all  the  railroads  in  the  United 
States  is  estimated  in  Poor's  Railway  Manual  of 
this  year.  A  little  more  than  three  months'  ex- 
penditures would  construct  and  equip  all  the 
railroads  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  the  mile- 
age of  which,  according  to  the  same  authority, 
was  at  the  close  of  the  year  1867,  4,300  !  4,300 
miles  of  railroad  at  $40,000  per  mile  comes  to 
$172,000,000,  which  sum  is  expended  every  one 
hundred  days  by  this  "  wise  and  frugal"  party  I 
Every  hundredth  day  the  people  are  made  to 
yield  taxes  enough  to  buy  up  all  the  railroads 
in  the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania— a  State 
which  owes  all  its  greatness  mainly  to  these 
splendid  arteries  of  commerce  See  how  the 
wheels  of  industry  are  clogged  by  this  mighty 
drag  !  How  long  do  you  intend  it  shall  last  ? 
Shall  wrong  continue  to  breed  its  like  forever  ? 
Shall  you  be  pestered,  by  cries  of  traitor  and 
copperhead ,  from  studying  these  facts  and  fig- 
ures? 

COMMERCE   FAILING. 

While  traveling  in  Maine,  I  found  their  great 
interest,  ship- building  and  commerce,  absolutely 
dead.  The  silence  of  the  tomb  was  in  their 
ship-yards.  Once  they  resounded  with  the 
noise  of  industry.  Now  all  is  idle.  The  very 
coasting  trade,  protected  by  the  navigation 
laws,  to  partake  of  which  foreign  built  vessels 
are  forbidden,  even  when  owned  and  manned 
by  American  citizens,  is  suffering  nearly  unto 
death.  There  is  no  trade  from  New  York  under 
our  flag  to  foreign  ports.  No  cotton  goes  out 
abroad,  except  in  other  than  our  ships.  We 
are  ruined  in  our  commerce.  We  hang  our 
heads  in  shame.  But  this  ruin  is  not  limited  to 
one  trade  or  business,  nor  to  one  locality.  Why 
did  you  of  Pennsylvania  unite  in  carving  out 
your  way  to  the  Grulf  of  Mexico,  when  secession 
strove  to  hold  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  ? 
Long  before  France  sold  us  Louisiana — while 
Spain  held  it — the  brave  and  adventurous  peo- 
ple of  Western  Pennsylvania  actually  rigged  out 
their  flat-boats,  and  collected  some  2,000  men  to 
the  deltas  of  the  Great  River  and  took  it  by  force 
from  Spain.  It  was  their  natural  outlet.  It  is 
yours  yet.  It  is  your  safety  against  exorbitant 
railroad  charges  for  transportation.  The  river 
trade,  like  that  of  the  lakes,  became  a  great 
source  of  wealth.  Think  of  your  situation  ! 

SOUTHWESTERN     TRADE     DESTROYED. 

One  of  the  great  natural  advantages  of  this 
State  consists  in  its  having  a  watershed  that 


45 


empties  into  two  oceans.  The  streams  that  run 
eastward  empty  into  the  Atlantic.  Those  that 
run  westward  drain  the  Valley  of  the  Mississppi 
and  empty  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  You  own  a 
part  of  the  Gulf  Stream.  You  are  blessed  by 
nature,  but  cursed  by  man.  This  Radical  party 
drains  you  of  your  resources.  The  great  south- 
western trade  is  lost  to  you.  It  was  formerly  a 
large  trade  to  ship  iron,  hardware,  nails,  agri 
cultural  implements,  castings,  coal  an  i  produce 
down  the  Ohio  to  Kentucky,Tennessee,  Arkansas, 
Mississippi,  and  Louisiana,  and  out  to  the  main 
This  trade  is  virtually  destroyed.  The  recon- 
struction measures  have  paralized  the  industry 
of  the  South.  There  are  no  statistics  that  will 
-definitely  illustrate  this  falling  off  in  the  south- 
western trad£,  but  the  fact  is  familiar  to  all.  It 
is  the  counterpart  of  the  failing  coastwise  trade 
Resurrect  the  industries  South  by  a  new  pro- 
gramme ;  enfranchise  and  energize  the  people 
who  are  intelligent,  and  give  them  protection 
and  the  olden  commerce  will  revive.  This  can 
not  be  done  by  a  policy  of  repression  and  hate ! 

LAND   MONOPOLY. 

There  is  another  topic  to  which  I  wish  you 
to  give  particular  attention.  It  has  hardly  been 
adverted  to  during  this  canvass.  I  refer  to  the 
gigantic  land  monopolies  with  which  we  are  be- 
ing burdened  under  Radical  legislation.  Mo- 
nopolies have  always  been  a  means  of  grasping 
at  wealth  and  power.  The  history  of  the  as- 
cendancy o(  favored  classes  and  the  degrada- 
tion of  the  people,  and  of  those  mighty  revolu- 
tions which  turned  back  these  tides  of  tyranny, 
is  marked  by  the  rise  and  fall  of  monopolies 
The  revolution  in  which  Charles  II.  lost  his 
head  was  largely  due  to  the  insufferable  mono- 
plies  he  had  conferred  upon  his  favorites. 
Among  the  list  of  grievances  which  the  French 
Revolutionists  of  '89  alleged,  monopolies  bore  no 
insignificant  part.  When  this  Government  was 
founded  there  were  no  monopolies  within  its  do- 
main. Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  steady 
growth.  Soon  these  parasites  will  overcome  the 
parent  trunk.  The  last  vestige  of  genuine  lib- 
erty will  then  have  disappeared.  One  of  the 
chief  outlets  and  safety-valves  for  the  numerous 
evils  which  Radical  rule  has  brought  upon  us 
has  been  the  freedom  with  which  land  could  be 
obtained.  Tax  a  man  more  than  he  can  bear, 
and  he  strikes  for  higher  wages.  If  the  strike 
ends  successfully  he  has  in  a  measure  obtained 
relief.  Should  it  end  unsuccessfully,  there  re- : 


mains  but  two  resources  for  him.  Either  to 
suffer  the  exaction,  or  seek  relief  by  occupying 
the  public  lands.  He  rushes  to  the  primal  and 
most  ennobling  occupation,  that  of  cultivating 
the  soil.  In  this  way,  and  owing  to  the  plenty 
and  cheapness  of  the  lands,  have  we  been  able 
to  bear  as  much  as  we  have  of  Radical  rule. 
But  eren  this  resource  is  being  gradually  taken 
from  us.  The  public  lands  are  being  rapidly 
monopolized.  To  one  railroad  alone  has  been 
given  as  much  land  as  would  suffice  to  make 
several  good-sized  States.  According  to  the  sur- 
veys and  estimates  made  prior  to  1858,  the  pub- 
lic lands  covered  an  area  of  2,265,625  square 
miles,  or,  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty  million 
acres,  embraced  within  the  limits  of  the  States 
and  territories  existing  at  that  time.  The  en- 
tire area  of  the  Union,  including  its  rivers  and 
lakes,  was,  in  the  year  1860,  3,001,002  square 
miles,  since  which  time  it  has  not  increased,  ex- 
cept lately  in  the  acquisition  of  Alaska.  Of  the 
fourteen  hundred  and  fifty  million  acres  of  pub- 
lic lands  there  had  been  disposed  of  in  various 
ways,  from  the  organization  of  the  Govern- 
ment up  to  the  30th  of  September,  1863,  the  fol- 
lowing areas  : 

ACRES. 

Land  sold  for  cash* 152,334,856 

Otherwise  disposed  of 253,036,689 


Total  disposed  of 405,371,545 

Undisposed  of 1,044,628,455 

Total 1,450,000,000 

In  other  words,  during  a  period  of  75  years 
405  million  acres  of  public  land  had  been  dis- 
posed of  in  various  ways ;  but  an  area  equal  to 
half  of  the  whole  amount  disposed  of  during  a 
period  of  75  years,  cautiously  and  safely  for 
valuable  considerations,  has  been  since  1863 
recklessly  dissipated  in  less  than  four  years  of 
Radical  rule.  (Cheers.)  Since  the  date  above 
mentioned  nearly  two  hundred  million  acres  of 
public  lands  have  been  given  gratis  to  railroad 
corporations  alone.  I  quote  from  tbe  report  of 
;he  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  for  1867  : 

The  railroad  interest  has  received,  among  other 
iavors  and  franchises  of  the  Government,  grants  of 
public  land  amounting  to  184,000,000  acres,  in  aid  of 
lines  extending  in  all  directions  to  the  borders  of 
civilization,  under  the  plea  of  furnishing  facilities  of 
travel,  and  the  transportation  of  the  fruits  of  agri- 
culture and  the  products  of  mines  ;  and  the  results 


*  About  $190,000,000. 


46 


disregarding  the  general  welfare,  these  MONOPOLIES  ;  degree  of  certainty  the  amount  of  our  net  pro- 


have  continued  in  their  tariff  of  rates  to  discrimin- 
ate unfairly  against  farm  products  and  to  require 
much  the  larger  portion  of  the  value  of  the  crops 
for  their  transportation  to  market. 

At  $1.25  gold  per  acre,  the  average  price  rea- 


duct  as  a  people.  I  have  endeavored,  as  others 
have,  to  know  what  it  was,  with  a  view  to  as- 
certain whether  it  was  not  being  used  up  by 
taxation.  This  nation  will  never  economize  un- 


lized  by  the  land  previously  sold   for  cash,  this  I  der  ft  curr          and  a  rule  such  as  we  have,  till  it 


donation  of  one  hundred  and  eighty-four  mil- 
lion acres  was  worth  two  hundred  and  thirty 
million  dollars  gold,  or  three  hundred  and 
twenty-two  million  dollars,  currency. 

In  conclusion,  have  I  not  shown  how  your  in 
dustries  are  burdened,  your  net  profits  absorbed, 
your  cost  of  living  increased,  your  expenditures 
growing  monthly,  your  agriculture  falling  off, 
your  system  of  federal  representation  destroyed, 
your  commerce  blighted,  your  government  debt 
increasing,  your  credit  threatened  with  bank- 
ruptcy, your  resources  squandered,  your  public 
lands  given  away  to  monopolies,  and  the  coun- 
try itself  finding  no  relief,  no  peace,  no  tran- 
quility.  Why  cannot  there  be  a  change  ?  Let 


knows  that  its  salvation  depends  on  it.  It  is 
not  easy  t  o  find  out  the  net  product  of  our  in- 
dustries. I  tried  it  without  much  satisfaction. 
In  my  remarks  in  Bloomsburg,  I  gave  data,  and 
from  them  deducted  some  conclusions.  If  they 
provoke  inquiry,  discussion,  and  a  better  eluci- 
dation of  the  facts,  I  shall  be  glad.  I  took  the 
estimate  of  Mr.  Tilden  as  to  the  local  taxation — 
i.  e.,  taxation  other  than  Federal.  He  fixed  it 
at  two  hundred  and  fifty  millions.  His  was  an 
estimate ;  it  was  under  the  mark,  .but  reason- 
ably accurate.  My  estimate  is  two  hundred 
and  sixty-three  millions.  I  send  you  my  figures, 
collected  and  collated  since  my  speech.  It  is 
impossible  for  any  one,  in  any  library  in  New 


the  people  decide.  The  sword  has  done  its  worst  |  y0rk  or  Washington,  to  ascertain  the  aggregate 
and  its  best.  Let  it  be  beaten  into  ploughshares. 
Let  the  spirit  of  peace  and  concord  come  again  ! 
Let  us  bear  our  part,  at  least,  in  the  duty  of 
election  between  the  parties,  without  prejudice 
or  passion !  then  all  may  be  well.  Men  o^ 
Pennsylvania,  Horatio  Seymour  once  saved  your 
State  from  the  invasion  of  a  hostile  force  from 
the  South.  (Cheers.)  He  will  save  you  again, 
elevated  to  the  Executive  chair ;  for  he  has  the 
wisdom,  frugality,  and  patriotism  of  the  best 
days  of  the  republic  !  (Loud  cheers.)  Will  you 
do  your  duty  ?  You  will  have  labor  and  sacri- 
fice to  undergo.  The  enemy  are  unscrupulous 
and  bold.  They  have  the  renown  of  a  great 
soldier  to  cover  their  misdeeds.  But  you  will 
bend  to  the  work.  The  people  of  America  will 
crown  your  labors!  Your  founder,  from  his 
prison,  once  sent  forth  a  pamphlet,  "  No  Cross, 
no  Crown."  Bear  your  part  of  the  sacrifice, 
and  you  will  have  the  guerdon. 

"Those  that  bear  the  cross  to-day 

Shall  wear  the  crown  to-morrow." 
(Cheers ) 


(Addendum  to  Speech  of  Oct.  9.) 
Balance-Sheet  of  the  Country. 

LETTER   FROM    Si    S.    COX. 

Harrisburg,  Pa.,  Oct.  10,  1868. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  World. 

SIR  :  It  ought  to   be   a  matter  of  interest  to 
every  one,  of  every  party,  to  ascertain  with  some 


of  local  taxation.  The  reports  of  State  officers 
rarely  give  the  figures.  Even  in  New  England, 
where  there  is  more  method  in  the  publication 
of  State  finances,  there  is  seldom  a  report  made 
of  the  municipal  levies.  Ohio  shows  in  her  re- 
ports the  whole  of  the  taxation.  Perhaps  Ohio 
is  an  average  State.  Her  towns,  cities,  and  coun- 
ties have  been  assessed  for  railroad  and  other 
extraordinary  purposes ;  but  other  States,  per- 
ps,  are  taxed  more  than  Ohio  on  their  muni- 
cipal duplicates  for  war  debts.  Ohio  furnishes  a 
fair  average.  I  give  you  my  conclusions,  based 
on  her  returns,  adding  the  data,  which  confirm 
my  conclusions  from  other  localities.  These 
will  furnish  the 

ESTIMATE   OF    THE     TOTAL    COST   OF   GOVERNMENT 
IN    THE    UNITED    STATES. 

I  take  the  year  1867  as  the  basis  of  computa- 
tion. The  revenue  of  the  United  States  for  the 
fiscal  year  ended  June  30, 1867,  exclusive  of  rev- 
enue from  loans,  amounted  to  $536,349,172  28. 
The  population  is  estimated  to  have  been  at  that 
date,  36,000,000.  Federal  revenue  per  capita, 
$14  90.  The  population  of  Ohio  at  the  same  date 
is  estimated  by  the  Director  of  the  Bureau  of  Sta- 
tistics to  have  been  2,850,600.  Ohio's  proportion 
of  contribution  to  the  Federal  revenue  was 
therefore  $41,313,000.  The  Auditor  of  the 
State  of  Ohio,  in  his  report  for  1867,  shows  that 
the  whole  amount  of  taxation  levied  in  that 
State  in  1867  for  all  purposes,  exclusive  of  Fed- 


47 


eral  taxes,  was  $20,253,615,  of  which  3,981,100 
or  19.6  was  levied  for  the  State,  $6,033.638  or 
29.7  for  the  counties,  and  $10,238,877  or'50.5  for 
the  townships,  cities,  towns,  and  boroughs,  and 
for  schools  and  other  special  purposes. 

Regarding  these  proportions  respectively  as 
20,  30,  and  50  per  cent,  this  would  give  $1.42 
per  capita  for  State  taxes,  $213  per  capita 
for  county  taxes,  and  $3.55  per  capita  for  town 
taxes. 

Applying  these  data  to  the  total  population 
of  the  country,  we  have  the  following  results. 


TOTAL  TAXES,    1867. 

Population  of  the  United  States 

Per  Capita. 

Federal $1490 

Town,  etc 355 

County 2.13 

State 1.42 

Total  taxes  $2200    » 

RECAPITULATION . 

Cost  of  Federal  Government  $14.90 
Cost  of  State  and  Local  Gov- 
ernments      7.10 


36,000,000 

Amount  Paid, 

.$536,349,172 

131,350,000 

78,810,000 

52,540.000 

$799,049,172 

$536,349,172 
262,700.000 


Total $22.00  $799,049,172 

— almost  eight  hundred  millions  !  Others  who 
have  figured  upon  these  matters,  while  dif- 
fering on  the  items,  singularly  agree  upon 
the  aggregate.  Allow  me  to  present  other 
data  which  relate  to  Federal  and  local  tax- 
ation. The  year  1866  is  selected  because  it 
furnishes  the  most,  and  the  most  reliable  infor- 
mation. The  taxation  of  New  York  city,  so 
enormous,  was  discussed  last  fall  during  the 
mayoralty  caihpaign.  It  was  shown  by  Mr. 
Hoffman  and  others,  that  the  great  bulk  of  it 
was  due  to  the  outside  government,  commis- 
sions, etc.,  for  which  the  Democratic  adminis- 
tration of  the  city  was  in  no  wise  responsible, 
and  against  which  they  were,  and  are,  in  per- 
petual protest. 

The  following  is  a  statement  of  the  amount  of 
taxes  assessed  in  the  cities  named  for  city  and 
county  purposes  for  the  years  1860  and  1866, 
and  their  relation  to  population : 

, — Ammint, — ^   f-Ratap  Capita.—. 

1860.  1866.  1860.  1866. 

Ne\v  York.... $7, 649, 873  $15,606,896  $940  $1734 

Philadelphia. .  2,334,252  5,084,539  4.13  817 

Boston 2,294,533  4,224,202  12.90  21.98 

Cincinnati 1,298,621  2,010,322  8.06  1039 

Chicago 373315  1,719,064  3.42  8.57 

San  Francisco.      796,666  1,496,657  14.03  18.71 

The  increase  in  the  city  and  county  shown 
in  these  figures  is  astounding.  In  New  York 
City  these  taxes  now  amount  to  $17  34  per  head, 
against  $9.40  in  1860  ;  in  Boston  the  increase  is 
$9.08  per  head  ;  in  Philadelphia,  $4.04;  inCin- 


i  cinnati,  $2.33  ;  in  Chicago,  $5.15,  and  in  San 
i  Francisco,  $4.68.  In  order,  however,  to  ascer- 
tain the  whole  amount  of  taxation  to  which  our 
city  populations  are  subject,  it  is  necessary  to 
add  to  the  foregoing  the  share,  per  capita,  of 
taxes  levied  for  State  purposes,  and  also  for  Fed- 
eral" imposts. 

The  amount  of  State  taxes  levied  in  these 
States,  and  the  proportion  per  capita  compare 
as  follows : 

r- Amount  of  Taxes  —^  f—Tax  p-  cap — ^ 
1860.  .     1866.          1860.     1866 

New  York $4,376,167    $17,369.043    $1.13    $1.84 

Pennsylvania..  2,368,967        4,060,148      0.81      1.27 
Massachusetts.       901,010        3,137,531      0.73      2.4£ 

Ohio 3,504,713        3,867,167      150      1.50 

Illinois 1,825,792        2,514,023      1.07      1.17 

California 1,131,063        2,233,492      2.99      4.96 

The  following  is  a  statement  of  the  population, 
internal  taxation,  customs,  and  debt  of  the 
United  States  in  1860  and  1866,  and  their  rela- 
tion to  population : 

Per  Capita, 
1860.  1866.        1860.     1866. 

Population 31,500,000      35,000,000 

Internal  revenue  $309,226,813    $ $8.83 

Customs $53,187,512     179,046,651       1-69     5.12 

National  debt.  64,769,703  2,783,425,879      2.06  79.53 

The  whole  taxation  per  head  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  respective  cities  is  thus  be  sum" 
marized : 


New  York. 


Philadelphia.    4.13 

Boston 12.-90 

Cincinnati. . .     8.06 

Chicago 3.42 

San  Fr'ncisco,  14,03 


1860       1866 
$9.40  $17.34 


r- Federal*— ^ 
1860  1866  1860  1866 
$1.13  $1.84  $1.69  $13.95 


8.17 
21.98 
10,39 

8,57 
18,71 


0.81 
0.73 
1,50 
1.07 

2.99 


1  27 
249 
1,50 
1,17 
4,96 


1.69 
1.69 
1,69 
1,69 
1,69 


13.95 
13.95- 
13,95 
13.95- 
13,95 


TOTAL    CITY,   COUNTY,    STATE,   AND   FEDERAL   TAX- 
ATION. 

, Total. » 

1860,  1866, 

New  York $12  12  $33  13 

Philadelphia 663  2339 

Boston 15  32  38  42 

Cincinnati 11  25  25  84 

Chicago 618  2369 

San  Francisco. 18  71  37  62 

"  It  will  appear  from  a  comparison  of  these  figures 
that  the  total  taxation  of  our  city  population,  so  far 
as  may  be  judged  from  the  cities  here  instanced,  has 
increased  from  about  $12  per  head  in  1860  to  $30  per 
head  in  1866.  There  is  considerable  diversity  in  the 
proportions  between  the  different  cities,  and  the  ratio 
of  increase  also  varies  materially  at  the  several 
places  ;  but  this  may  be  taken  as  the  average  aug- 
mentation of  our  burdens  since  the  year  antecedent 
to  the  war.  Allowing  five  per-ons  to  each  family  it 
wouJd  follow  that  the  amount  of  taxation  paid  di- 
rectly and  indirectly  by  our  city  population  is  $150 
per  family  against  $60  in  1860,  showing  an  average 
increase  of  $90  per  family."  It  is  demonstrable  by 
various  methods  that  our  net  product — the  amount 
annually  saved  from  the  product  of  labor— is  wholly 
absorbed  by  this  intolerable,  extravagant,  and 
growing  taxation. 

Yours,  S.  S.  COX. 


PAT.  JAN.  21 ,1908 


1 


